


us and them

by Semjasa



Series: Ravenous [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Catatonia, Depression, Despair, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Sannin Era, Second Shinobi War, Third Shinobi War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-08-04 11:11:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16345613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semjasa/pseuds/Semjasa
Summary: There are friends who come along with certain decisions, mostly not made by oneself. And then there are friends you make by your own decisions.Orochimaru was like the winter. Cold, icy, harshly, and quiet, too. There was no warmth to expect, everything hidden beneath the cover of immaculate snow, serene, deadly, but tempting in its beauty. Incalculable in its stormy nature, the chilly, grey sky possibly metamorphosing in harsh snowstorms. And so, Sen was summer. Hot-blooded, fiery, sometimes hazy, sometimes dizzy and lethargic, but always clear to words, clear as the summer sky, only darkened by heavy summer storms, clearing her from her furious wrath trapped inside her. Together, they could be the best of them: Mellow autumn days, rustling leaves, in red and gold burning trees, the air clear, fresh, the daylight a golden, honey shade, unique for the whole year, the last kiss of summer warmth, already in anticipation for the longer nights: remembering the best what lays behind, preparing for the worst to come, carrying the strength of yesteryears, without fear for the dark and cold before them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native speaker. And although I'm not new to writing in general, this is my first attempt at writing in English. So be patient ;) Constructive (!) criticism is very much appreciated.

 

  
_Us and them_  
 _And after all we’re only ordinary men_  
 _Me_  
 _And you_  
 _God only knows_  
 _It’s not what we would choose to do_  
 _Forward he cried from the rear_  
 _And the front rank died_  
 _And the general sat_  
 _And lines on the map_  
 _Moved from side to side_

Pink Floyd – Us and Them

 

“Careful.”

Rain was falling. Soft and tender as warm, sweet snowflakes, caressing shattered, maltreated skin. Body weightless, without sensation.

“I don’t get it. She’s an enemy.”

Falling and flying, at the same time, between shades of darkness and total eclipse. Masks shattered, broken, torn the veil of sanity. Then there was something hard. Earth. Stone. Something wet. Rain. Blood.

“We don’t know for sure. Her _hitai ate_ is gone.”

Breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe?

“Look, she’s already stopped breathing, so could we go on – _please?_ ”

“Let me try something first.”

A sigh. Then a press against her chest. A warm, almost hot feeling, a _burning_ inside of her, and then there was a wheeze escaping her crooked lungs and she soaked in the cool air in long, exasperated breaths.

“Look who’s breathing again.”

She opened her eyes. Darkness fell apart, heavy curtains of faded impressions, thoughts, perceptions, _memories_. For a moment there was nothing left, and she wondered if she was blind. If she was alive – had ever lived. The cold rain was the first thing she eventually could feel, gentle and fondling, balm on her ruined senses. And then, at last, the ability to see came back.

Dark, heavy clouds upon her, the rain falling on her shattered skin, cold and gentle, and at the corners of her perception the smell of blood and iron, vomit and burning flesh, filling her lungs to its borders. She had to heave, sat up and leaned on her side as her body forced her to vomit, raving pain tearing her inside.

“Hush.” There was a gentle hand on her shoulder, made her wince involuntarily, a warm grip and she lifted her head, looking in the face of a man, tall and big and impressive, long and wild white hair and a soft expression in his dark eyes. This was wrong. Somehow, the kindness in his dark eyes didn’t fit her feelings, an echo back in her mind of danger, pain and bestiality. Was she still alive?

And then she met his glance, she saw it wandering down, gazing at her body and something inside of her snapped; let’s call it ‘instinct’. She raised her hand and slammed her knuckles in the guy’s face.

There was a frustrated grumble from the woman a few steps behind him, burying her face in her hand, and a wicked chuckle from the man next to her. “At least, she has some judgement left.”

“Jiraiya!”, the woman called out. “Get off of her!”

“But – she – I! Tsunade! That’s not fair! I didn’t do anything!”

The woman – blond hair and amber-coloured eyes, her armour covered in blood, a goddess of war – gripped Jiraiya’s neck und wrenched him away. She was looking at the two of them – _shinobi_ as she could tell from their clothing –, uncertain und confused, sick and bewildered. The other one came closer, looking down on her. His eyes staring her down like a snake observing its prey, and now _that_ finally fit the feeling haunting her mind. On pure instinct she reached for something pointed and sharp, but he just shook his head. His black hair was bloodstained, sticky and wet. “Who are you?”

“I’m not sure.” Her own voice sounded hoarse and strange to her.

The blackhaired _shinobi_ with golden, snakelike eyes raised one of his brows, unimpressed. “Not sure, are we? Let’s have a try. Do you remember your name?”

She thought about that simple question and searched deep within herself, probing for a name, something familiar – identity. But as she searched the inner chambers of her existence, the walls building up the fragile construct of personality, of _meaning_ , she only found broken masks, torn and disrupted, costumes and old lines of old acts, like wondering through the old, abandoned cabinet of a long rotten artist.

So, she dug deeper. Shoved apart the scattered masks and costumes to look what’s lying beyond. And then she finally found something, reached for it, it was the opening line of a very old act, covered with dust, the oldest she could find, somehow knowing _this_ used to be the greatest role of her live: herself.

“Sen.”

“Your family’s name?”

“Don’t know.”

“So, Sen it will be. Very well. Which village are you fighting for, Sen?”

“Am I?” Sen looked up at him and then she slowly got on her feet, her glance roaming her surroundings and the battlefield she had been lying on.

Sen. She was sure about that, let the thought roll in her mind over and over again, Sen, Sen, where from? What’s the next line in her script? She looked down at herself, at sandals and solid trousers, a combat-vest, bloodclogged knives on her side. She had been fighting. There was blood, and she was quite sure, it was not only hers.

The man suddenly stood behind her, grabbed her hands und pulled them to her back.

“What – what are you doing?”

“You’re coming with us.”

“Wait – what?!” Sen pulled in the air sharply as he tied her wrists behind her back.

“As long as you can’t make out who you actually are, you’re an enemy.”

“Is that really necessary, Orochimaru?” Jiraiya stepped towards them but didn’t make any attempt to stop his teammate from lifting her by the rope around her wrists and pushing her forward.

Orochimaru hissed at him. “My preferred alternative would be getting rid of her in an instant and leave her body with the rest of all these corpses. Though, I assume, that would be against your pitiful morality…”

“Well, she could be a Konoha-nin.”

“And so, I’m keeping her alive until we have certainty.”

Jiraiya looked at Tsunade for help, but she only shook her head. “I’m with Orochimaru. We don’t know her – we can’t trust her.”

“Sen. My name is Sen. At least you can take that for sure.”, she complained, quite sure this wouldn’t be helpful at all. However, at least there was certainty about her name, wasn’t there? She felt the need to laugh deep inside her body, in her bones, in her blood, the want for enjoying the simple fact that she was still _alive_ , not a corpse among others, not rotten flesh. She had fought and lost, even her memory – temporally, as she supposed –, at least she hadn’t lost her name. And a name meant identity.

She couldn’t care less that Orochimaru was forcing her ungently across the killing field, made her stumble over cobbles, limbs, rubble and cadavers, towards the campfires at the branches of the battle field, gathered around it like fireflies in the middle of the night. She was alive. She could breathe, thanks to that war goddess walking in front of her, thanks to that pervert guy, who asked for her healing and thanks to the sinister man in her back, who decided to give her shattered identity a chance instead of killing her.

Nonetheless, her identity wasn’t the only thing shattered in her.

Sen wanted to behave like the brave, little girl she liked to see in herself – although, it had been quite a while since she looked in the mirror and would’ve called herself a _girl_ –, but she couldn’t stop herself from hissing and panting as Orochimaru shoved her forwards, forcing her aching body to move in a speed very inadequate for her condition, despite her vast feeling of relief from being alive.

The camp’s lights broke through the night, an inviting fleck of warmth and feigned safety, in which the four of them advanced, Orochimaru’s cold hands forcing her on her knees in front of fire and unfamiliar faces. A wheeze teared itself form her throat as pain flowed through her body, dull and sharp and fervent at once, so hard that she had to cough, an ache inside her throat, which made her already heaving again. The grip at her wrists was gone, Orochimaru headed for another _shinobi_ – “How many casualties?” – and disappeared from her sight.

Sen turned her head to look around, searching for someone, something familiar, but there were only foreign faces, not recognising her, not caring at all.

“So, Sen it was?”

Sen looked up to the _shinobi_ in front of her. “Yes, Tsunade-san.”

Tsunade raised a brow. “Do you have any idea, who I am? Or Jiraiya? Orochimaru?”

“No, Tsunade-san, and if I didn’t address you appropriately, you have my apologies.”

For a moment there was a sly smile on her lips, while she crossed her arms before her chest and eyed her thoroughly, though before she could respond, Jiraiya took the word, approaching in her field of view. “She sounds like the old man.”

Tsunade huffed. “You are as old as ‘the old man’.”

“Well, but Orochimaru is behaving like one, and I’m not.”

“No”, Tsunade agreed, “you behave like the pervert you are.”

“Uhm, excuse me?” Sen directed the attention of the two back to her as she felt growing tension between them. She wouldn’t be amused to stand – well, _knee_ – between them, if Tsunade decided to go at Jiraiya’s throat. “What’s going to happen now? I think, Konohagakure won and…that’s good? So…if you don’t mind, might it be possible to untie me and let me see a medic?”

Tsunade gave a sly chuckle, while Jiraiya sighed deeply, at the edge to despair. “It’s not right to leave her like this!”

“Oh no, Jiraiya!” Tsunade held her hands up in resistance, moving on her heels away, absolutely ignoring the fact, Sen was trying to force her back only with her gaze. “That’s between you and Orochimaru. I’ve got _shinobi_ to doctor up.”

While there wasn’t anyone around feeling responsible for her, at least this guy perhaps did care a little. The fact adjusted all of Sens attention to the slight overwhelmed seeming ninja in front of her.

“Seems like it’s just the two of us! Very well, Jiraiya, would you mind telling me, what’s going to happen to me – _please?_ ”

“I –”

The sound of steps breaking through leaves and branches interrupted them, and Sen emitted a deep and angry growl from her throat.

“They’re preparing for another attack.” Orochimaru sounded rather _curious_ than anxious. A snake winded itself around his arm, whose scaled body he held gently with his hand, while he talked to Jiraiya.

“That’s ridiculous. Are you sure, your small little spy is right?”

“There are just a few left, but they will attempt a last try to take as many of us with them as possible in an ambush. I’d suggest, you head back to the village with the wounded. I’ll stay with a handful of teams and deal with it.”

Jiraiya grimaced at these words. “I don’t like it.”

“Well, who would have thought that?”, Orochimaru scoffed, as he caressed with tender fingers the snake’s scales, before it disappeared in his hand in a breeze of smoke and ashes. “I’m open to suggestions.”

Jiraiya huffed. “Ok then. Take whoever you need, and I’ll leave with Tsunade and the rest of us.”

They both cast a glance at Sen, and she harshly shook her head. “No! I’m not going anywhere until I have answers!”

Orochimaru chuckled. “Well, my dear, as if you’d have a choice.” He stepped forward and Sen could clearly see the intention in his eyes, she hissed and stumbled up to her feet, trying to get as much space between them as possible, but the game was rigged against her from the beginning, and even before she could make the attempt to run off, he knocked his fist against her temple and send her to the ground like a sack of rice.

There was only darkness. And somehow, she was glad about it.

 

* * *

 

Sen didn’t know how long she had been passed out, but at the fringe of her perception, she could tell her situation hadn’t change very much. Someone was carrying her over their shoulder, not very lady-like, but, otherwise, she wasn’t awake enough to complain and the more reasonable part of her brain told her: For heaven’s sake, just go back to sleep, Sen, bevor someone makes sure of it.

She had been easily convinced by that, and the next time Sen awoke, someone pulled her down on the earth, leaning her back at a tree.

Sen blinked and forced her eyes to adjust, hearing voices, orders issued, the groaning of the wounded. Her throat tightened in the need for water, and like the guy had just read her thoughts, Jiraiya crouched down in front of her, offering a flask with a questioning glance.

She nodded and allowed him to lead it to her mouth, greedy swallowing the cool, sweet water soothing her tongue and throat. She licked her lips. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave a generous smile, which was crumpling up in an instant as he could hear Tsunade yelling beyond the camp, until he could be sure, her rage wasn’t directed at him. As he looked back to her again, his eyes weren’t any longer adjusted to her face.

“Pervert, could you stop staring on me like that?” She tried to kick him, not very successful.

“Hey, you’re a pretty woman. Take it as a compliment!”

“No”, she responded stretched, “I take it as the humiliation it is and now _stop staring!_ ”

“Ok, all right, I’m sorry.” He sighed, willing to dwell his look in her eyes. “I’ll empty your pockets to see if something tells us where you come from.”

“Go ahead.”

Sen wished anyone – perhaps herself? – had come up earlier with that idea, but she assumed, the obvious isn’t always what comes to mind, when you just slaughtered through an entire army. Jiraiya searched her pockets, pulling the inside out, sending _kunai, shuriken_ and small scrolls to the floor, between them a key, which he held up, darting a questioning look at her.

Sen shrugged. “For my flat, I suppose.”

“Any possibility that you could remember your ninja-ID?”

Sen narrowed her eyes and, slowly, shook her head. “Nope. But I suppose, there are at least a few numbers in it.”

He sighed. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Well, you call _me_ crazy, big guy?”

He grinned at her, looking down to one of the scrolls and opened it. His eyes widened in surprise. “Here we go!”

“Uhm, what’s it?”

“You don’t even remember _this?_ ”

“Would I ask if I did?”

“Probably not.”

“So – what is it?”

“It seems. you’re a spy.”

“A spy?”

“Yeah.”

“For whom?”

“Well.” Jiraiya narrowed his eyes to make out the tiny handwriting. “It’s codified, but I’m halfway familiar with that. Looks like troop movements of Suna… – congratulations!” He beamed at her. “You aren’t a Suna-nin!”

“Yeah!” Sen didn’t even try to let her voice sound any other way than fake and ironical. She rolled her eyes. “So…? Who met on the battlefield? It wouldn’t be possible, that I’m from Ame or Iwa and just happened to stumble into the whole shit, now would it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Unless, you’re the worst spy in history for not being able to circumvent a fight that’s none of your business.” He smiled thoughtfully. “I think, you’re one of our spy- _shinobi_. And you were delivering Suna’s movements when the battle began. I’ll talk to Tsunade and Orochimaru as soon as he’s back.” He crammed her belongings back into her pockets, except for the one scroll, before he turned his head, looking in the dark beyond the camp. “Speak of the devil…”

_Shinobi_ moved in, exhausted, a few of them injured, movement was setting in the camp, and Sen saw Tsunade getting an overview of the _shinobi’s_ condition, while Orochimaru headed towards Jiraiya. His armour was bloodstained, splashes of blood on his pale skin, dark crimson soaking through his left arm and shoulder, but he was smirking, seemed almost satisfied.

“How did it go?”, Jiraiya asked.

“Suna won’t be a problem, possibly for a long time.”

He held still as Tsuande advanced him, looking sceptical at his arm, hovering her hand about his shoulder, spinning a net of green chakra between her fingertips and the scattered flesh. “I guess this whole mess was necessary, hm?”

“Are you worried about me, _hime?_ ”, he mocked.

“Shut up, idiot.”

Sen studied the three _shinobi_ in front of her, just a few steps away, in the gloomy light of small campfires. This was…familiar. Somehow, she knew this picture, this pairing, wondered if the three of them just reminded her of her own teammates, but that wasn’t it, it was – no. No, that couldn’t be.

“Sannin”

She gasped. All air left her lungs, as if she’d forgotten to breathe. She staired at Jiraiya, the toad sage, Tsunade, her personal war goddess, because no other title suited her more perfectly, and Orochimaru, the snake summoner. Living legends, the most lethal _shinobi_ to ever walk the earth, leaving death and destruction wherever their feet stepped the ground. _Holy shit!_

There was the ghost of a smile on the snake summoner’s pale lips, against the stiff expression of disappointment in his eyes. “I think, I did like her more when she couldn’t make out who we are.”

Tsunade assessed a response, perhaps to alert that Orochimaru very probably hadn’t liked her before either, but Jiraiya wagged the scroll under their noses to draw their attention. “Looks like she’s a Konoha-spy.”

Tsunade casted a glance at the writing for which Orochimaru reached out with his unharmed hand to hold it in front of their eyes. Finally, she finished her healing- _jutsu_ , let go of Orochimaru’s shoulder and grabbed for the paper. “I see. That makes sense.”

“We can’t be certain if it’s the truth, can we?” Orochimaru looked at Sen with this not very polite snake-against-the-little-mouse-gaze, but no matter how much respect Sen had got for the Sannin, she felt the urgent necessity to kick him in the shin.

Sen tightened her body to a more upright position and rose to speak: “Wherever I belong to, even if I’m not a spy for Konoha, I’m not feeling obliged to a village, mad enough to fight against the Sannin.”

“My, my. It’s a pity, isn’t it?” His smirk was devious and hungry, she shuddered slightly as his tongue licked his lips. “I won’t untie you.”

“Hell – why?”

“Orochimaru?”, Jiraiya looked confused, while Tsunade didn’t seem very surprised.

“Even if you are _our_ spy, Sen, you didn’t go straight back to deliver your observations, but rather ended up lying half-dead in the mire.” He held up the scroll in his hand. “We have to make certain you weren’t inverted by Suna.”

“ _What?_ Are you fucking kidding me?!” Sen dug her feet in the ground, used the hold of the tree in her back to get at her feet, ready to jump against Orochimaru, not caring that this wouldn’t win her anything, but before she could do something really embarrassing, he pushed his hand against her forehead and made her fall back on her bottom. “Bastard!”

He sighed. “You have to be more creative if you want to insult me, sweetheart.”

Sen uttered a growl deep inside her throat, her eyes tearing him limb from limb, she got on her knees, searched with her feet for hold, her body tensed like the string of a bow in the second before the arrow would be released from her fingertips, straight in the bastard’s eye, who waited with rising excitement for her next move –

“Calm down – both!”

They huffed, both, but Sen wasn’t suicidal enough to ignore Tsunade’s sharp command, who threw her gaze back at Orochimaru. “Go. Please. You, too, Jiraiya.”

“But–!”

“Now!”

She grumbled, her mood on the edge to mere bloodlust, as she watched the two leaving. With a sigh she turned to Sen and knelt before her. “So, then. With the two bastards gone, may we talk like civilized women?”

“I’d like to.”

“This is what’s going to happen: I take care of your injuries, we continue to head back to Konoha, and then there you’ll deliver your observations to the Hokage, get to know your family’s name and your ID, so everyone is fine and none of my stupid teammates will infuriate me more than they already did. How does that sound?”

“Excellent.”

“Good! So, we have a deal.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Katsura Sen. ID# 005379.” The old man downed the papers in front of him on the desk, chewing on his pipe, hard eyes in a rutted face laid on her. Standing in front of him now, Sen knew she should have remembered the Hokage. But there was nothing. Silence. No quiet voice whispering at the bottom of her soul, telling her: It’s all right. No. There was no such comfort, and she hadn’t expected for there to be one. She was used to being disappointed, even by herself. How amusing. She didn’t know who she was, but that in itself was a fact, no uncertainty about this.

Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed and leaned back in his chair, examining his students and the tied up _shinobi-_ spy between them – it’s not like Sen hadn’t tried to get rid of the bonds, but hell, the snake summoner must have used some kind of _jutsu_ , because nothing worked, and because he threatened to gag her if she wouldn’t stop; well, she gave in – and finally reached for the scrolls lying on his table. “You can’t remember anything?”

“No, Hokage-sama.”

He hummed thoughtfully, smoking on his pipe, as if he was hoping to find answers in the mist of nicotine and watched her attentively. “Katsura Sen. You were sent on a mission, for which you left Konoha seven months ago, with the purpose to get behind enemy lines and gather as much information about their movements and forces as possible. You were sent to Sunagakure, Amegakure and Iwagakure. And you’ve delivered.” Sarutobi threw the unscrolled documents in front of them, papers covered with this tiny handwriting she had to consider was her own. “We should treat you as a hero, Katsura. But I’m afraid, Orochimaru is right. The loss of your memories might be attributed to some sort of genjutsu, mind game, or any other kind of manipulation. What businesses did one of my obviously best spies have on the battlefield?”

“I don’t know, Hokage-sama. I can’t remember what happened before the Sannin took care of me.” There was a slight bite of sarcasm on her tongue. “Who is my family? My home. Where is it?”

Sarutobi gave her a long look, almost tired and very, very unhappy. “It’s cruel, having to reveal it to you again. Your family is gone, Katsura, many years ago. You –”

“I was an orphan. The remnant of a razed clan.”

“Yes.”

Sen breathed in deeply. “Well.” She felt relief. Perhaps she was a bad person because of that, but it felt good to know. There wasn’t anyone left she had to care about. No beloved standing in front of her, breaking because of the fact, that she couldn’t remember the face, the story, the past. The plans for the future. There was no future, and now there wasn’t a past, too. She didn’t care. There were so many orphans in this village, in the entire world she knew, one man standing on her side facing the very same fate, grown up without family bonds and still valuable, going his own way, unbroken, unbewildered. At least, this is what they all told themselves. Over and over again. They had taken on the masks and written the lines for their plays all by themselves. They had decided who they wanted to be. That was, despite of all the solitude and emptiness, a privilege.

She nodded in calmness, while she could tell, that Jiraiya was scanning her face like the old man did, looking for a trace of sadness that wasn’t there. She held up her tied hands. “Release me, give me the address of my home and I’m gone.”

The Hokage’s face clouded in regret. “I can’t allow this. Not until we have certainty, that everything is alright with you.”

“Until you can prove that I’m not a traitor.” The words came harder and with more coldness from her lips as she intended to, because for all intents and purposes, there was enough left of the spy and agent in her to understand the potential danger she was in. She already could feel the first stirrings of anger. “Didn’t you just call me – a hero?”

“Watch your words.”

“It’s fine, Tsunade-chan. Katsura is right.” His eyes didn’t leave hers for a single breathe. “The problem is, you’re living alone. No one will be around to have an eye on you. And I won’t”, now his gaze was wondering from her to Orochimaru, with mild strength, “put Katsura in a prisoner cell for all her merits.”

“We are at war, sensei.”

“With these”, Sarutobi grabbed for the scrolls und held them up, looking at Orochimaru, “perhaps not for much longer.”

The Sannin exchanged glances, though Katsura didn’t give them much attention, looking down on the scrolls with these tiny handwriting of hers. A lost past and a whole life to end a war. Well, it could’ve been worse. Much worse.

“So, I decide”, the Hokage forced his former students’ attention back at him, “that Katsura will stay for the next days at one of yours places – to be watched, but not jailed. To keep a benevolent eye on you, Katsura Sen, until your memories come back.”

Orochimaru hissed, Tsunade sighed and Jiraiya wasn’t looking as embarrassed as Sen would’ve liked him to be. She clenched her jaw. “And if my memories won’t come back?”

“Then” Sarutobi said as he leaned back in his chair, nibbling on his pipe, “we’ll make sure, that you’ll get everything you need.”

This wasn’t an answer. This was nothing. Almost a threat. She didn’t know exactly what that was supposed to mean, but she had heard enough. Her voice was cold, even toneless as she responded: “Thank you very much for your time and help, Hokage-sama.” She bowed, waited patiently for someone to grab her shoulder and leading her out of the Hokage’s office.

Sen walked the few steps to one of the windows looking down on the village. There was something familiar to the sight, almost calming. At least something in her recognised this place as a kind of home.

“She’ll stay at yours.”

“Damn it, Tsunade, _no._ What’s the problem with taking her to _your_ home?”

“Well”, Tsunade said in a calm tone, she forced upon herself. “As you perhaps remember, I moved in with Dan. Last month.”

As Orochimaru went silent, Sen could already see the upset expression on his face without having to turn back to them. “I’m not pleased with any company in my house.”

“Yeah, of course, but at least you have your family’s _house_. With enough rooms, a lot of space and all that!”

“Right, it’s my _family’s_ house, not a dwelling for lost spies pretending to have amnesia.”

“You know, I can hear you all pretty well.”

“Now, I don’t have a problem, taking Sen with –”

“ _No!_ ”, Tsunade’s and Orochimaru’s voice called out in unison to her surprise.

Jiraiya made an offended sound, waved his hand for a good-bye and stepped down the corridor to the stairs. Orochimaru hissed at Tsunade, who was already turning on her heels to leave as well. “That will cost you something, Tsunade-hime.”

“Whatever. Hey, Katsura, tomorrow I’ll stop by to make sure, that the bastard doesn’t kill you in your first days already.”

“Too kind, Tsunade-san.”

Sen turned around to face Orochimaru, whose expression mirrored the emotions raising through her own mind nearly perfectly. She held up her hands. “Would you mind?”

He stepped towards her, tipping his fingertips lightly on the rope and the damn think just disappeared in smoke and ashes. With a sigh of relief, she shook out her hands and rubbed her wrists.

The snake summoner looked at her for another moment, before he turned on his heels. “I’ll bring you to your apartment, so you can catch what you need.”

At least, this felt like a start.

 

* * *

 

The air was stale inside the flat, a dome of lost past, stepping inward to another dimension, another time, another person’s life. Orochimaru watched her carefully as she entered the small apartment, and following an old habit, deeper rooted inside of her than her family’s name, she reached out for the window in the mainroom and opened it. Fresh air broke inside the domicile of forgotten breathes.

Sen reached for a bag upside a cupboard, knowing where to search without even knowing what exactly she was looking for. One room with a small kitchen and a bath, bedclothes folded meticulously on the sofa. If she closed her eyes, she would still find whatever she was looking for.

Orochimaru stepped in front of one of the bookcases covering the walls of the tiny apartment, reading the spines, while Sen walked in the bathroom, packing together what was needed. She left the bathroom, went for the kitchen range, opened the fridge and closed it again immediately, deciding this wasn’t quite the right moment to deal with whatever surprise was waiting for her in there. She opened a cupboard, took a few clothes at random and went past the bookcases to the desk below the window she had opened. Her fingers slid across the dark, smooth wood and stopped in front of a notebook, closed, pen still on top. She lifted the board, skimmed through the pages. The same tiny handwriting.

In the back of her mind was a sense, she couldn’t determine. There wasn’t a word in her mind to name what summoned a lost feeling of nausea in her entrails.

Sen took the notebook and threw it in the bag, opened the upper drawer in subconscious knowledge and took two more notebooks with her. She closed the drawer gently, turned around and stopped. Her glimpse fell down on an instrument, leaning on the bookcase next to the desk. A _biwa_. A very old one she could tell from the scars on its red-coloured surface.

She hesitated just for an instant, one single moment, in which her mind tried once more to determine the emotions settling down in her very being. Then she grasped for the _biwa’s_ neck and pulled the strap over her shoulder to rest it on her back.

Sen turned to face Orochimaru, who looked up from her books. “Done already?” He examined the bag in her hand, then the instrument on her back and narrowed his brows. “You aren’t going to take this _biwa_ with you, are you?”

“I am.”

He gave her a long look and sighed. “Whatever. May we leave?”

Sen closed the window and stepped outside the flat with him. She locked the door up and followed him through the streets of Konoha. Orochimaru’s hands rested inside the pockets of his trousers and his gaze never met the people passing by, which gave fuel to Sen’s memory, a breeze of familiarity. This strange mix of wariness, adoration, fear and even horror in the people’s eyes, stepping outside his way, was something she had seen before, several times. She followed him a few steps behind, aware that he knew exactly, if she was still behind him or not. Her glance wandered the village’s surface, recognizing what felt like home, if only for a bit. She didn’t care. She would’ve been glad if she’d just been allowed to bury herself within the narrow walls of her apartment, no one to accompany her than the merciful embrace of oblivion. It wasn’t meant to be. Well. Something was telling her, that this wasn’t the first time, things didn’t play out the way she would’ve preferred.

His path led her at the village’s border, where the last houses of old family’s, long gone and forgotten, met the tail of the old woods surrounding Konohagakure like a warm cloak of green darkness. She followed the gravel pathway with increasing curiosity, because living in the middle of the town, she usually never got to be so far out on the fringe of the village. The old houses lay apart, everyone for itself, telling old stories of the past and just a few of them were looking like someone was actually living in them. Sen never knew which small family Orochimaru came from, she only remembered him, like Hatake Sakumo and obviously herself, too, as last survivors of wiped-out clans, with only the violet marks on his eyes as the last reminiscences remaining.

The house he was leading her to was old, though still in a good shape. She followed him up the stairs to the porch, acknowledging the seals that locked the house instead of a simple key, which he dissolved with a couple of quick handsigns.

He opened the door and let her walk through. Sen was aware, as she stepped through the door, that most people would refuse to enter the home of one of the most gruesome – and successful – _shinobi_ ever holding a blade. She didn’t care. If anything, she felt gratitude for the Sannin. They did things without hesitation, that would make others lose their sanity. They were heroes, gods of assassination and horror. And who could say if Orochimaru didn’t invite another monster into his house?

Sen took off her shoes in the _genkan_ and stepped barefoot on the old, but smooth wood floor. She stood still, closed her eyes and breathed in the air of the house. Old. Dust. Wood. Books. Tea. She smiled slightly. In the end the dreaded snake summoner lived in a home like every other human being, too.

He stepped past her, headed forward in an ampled, light-flooded living room, in which she followed. Not unlike she had done with her own flat, Orochimaru made sure to cover every glimpse of wall with a bookcase, but other than Sen’s place there wasn’t a single carpet nor a _tatami_ on the floor, only the dark, old wood, feeling as almost smooth as fabric under her feet.

“Kitchen.” He waved a hand in the direction. “Bathroom. Upstairs is a guestroom you’ll use.”

“And over there?”

“My rooms.”

He didn’t have to say that she wasn’t allowed to enter them. Sen dropped her bag and the _biwa_ gently on the floor, walked with quiet footsteps to a veranda door and took a glimpse outside into a backyard. Behind the fence, the forest began. Its tall trees threw late-afternoon-shadows in the garden, crooked with wild plants, just a few beds carefully cultured with nightshades, other poisonous plants and a couple of kitchen herbs.

“Beautiful.”

He came toward her, stopped in her back, looking across her shoulders to follow her glance. He sighed slightly. “It was my mother’s garden, if I remember correctly.”

She didn’t respond, since there were things in this world, violations, scars, which made the need for words meaningless, like an empty shell, inside nothing left than an unpleasant smell, sweetish and foul.

“Go on and take the shower first. I’ll look for some blankets.”

Sen turned around to meet his gaze, but he was already heading away, shoving the bloodcrusted vest from his shoulders and throwing it to the floor in disgust.

“Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

The hot water pattering and pouring on her skin was delicate. It washed away the dirt, the blood, the tensions in her muscles, the sensation of that muddy knot inside her entrails, she wished she would be able to cough or sick up. She brushed her hair with her fingers, relieved it of blood and mud, until she could see the colour she was used to see in the wisps between her fingers. Draped in clean and pleasant clothes she felt good, eventually, almost pleased.

She left the guestroom, that she was allowed to use – empty except for a dresser and the futon, but she really didn’t need more – and descended the stairs to the living room.

Orochimaru was standing in the kitchen, his _hitae ate_ gone from his forehead, clothed in a simple _yukata_ , his hair relieved from filth and blood and still wet, rummaging the kitchen cabinets. He grumbled, running one hand through his hair.

“Need some help?”

Sen walked over the living room to the kitchen door, holding her elbows with her hands, uncertain, uncomfortable with the situation, a fact they both were distinctly aware of.

“No.” He shut the cabinet door and left the kitchen, heading for the _genkan._ “I’m leaving. You’re staying here.”

“Uhm. Ok.”

She followed in confusion, only to see how he stepped in his sandals and disappeared through the door. Sen went slowly through the _genkan_ , at last standing in front of the door that he just closed. Sen reached out for the doorknob. It was locked. “Come on. Really?” She headed back to the living room to try her luck at the veranda door. “Bastard!”, she shouted out, shaking at the doorknob, trying the same at the windows. The place was locked tight.

“I don’t believe it.” She ran her fingers through her hair and kicked against the veranda door, furious that he decided to still stick to these indescribable actions of mistrust, like the fucking tie, as if the two of them didn’t just have had a little moment of mutual trust.

Not on her watch. She wasn’t going to stay for days with a guy who would cage her like a straying cat.

Sen went for the kitchen, opened the cupboards, recognizing the store of food with a slightly amusement to be the absolute opposite to hers – no lifeform in there, which had gathered the ability to walk and even developed a kind of _intelligence_ of its own over the months left alone, like in her drawer; instead, there seemed to be an almost clinical absence of everything –, and grasped the fry pan. Heading back to the living room, she stood in front of one of the windows, lunged and hit the pan against glass.

For one moment she was afraid that the seal could protect the windows from breaking, but one thing the spy in her knew for sure: No matter how cunning and powerful a seal was created – there’s always a fitting key for it.

The glass burst, raining in a cascade of shining shards down on the floor. She scattered the remaining shards in the window frame with the pan. She brought it back to the shelf where she had found it, looked for a broom and cleaned up the floor in front of the broken window. Then she went upstairs and fetched the _biwa_ from her guestroom. Finally, she climbed through the window, landed lightly on the veranda floor and walked the way down to the backyard.

Perhaps she had overreacted. Perhaps she had just made a point. She didn’t care. There was nothing left inside her, nothing but the unexpected joy smashing a Sannin’s window. He’ll survive it. Maybe she, too.

Sen walked through the high grass, enjoying the feeling on her bare feet. The grass felt wet and a chilly in the evening sun, buried by the shadows of the nearby forest. This garden in all his imperfect beauty, overgrown and cultured at the same time, was gorgeous, it was exactly what she needed, what her eyes longed for to see and observe, to distract her from looking time after time in the very depths of her empty soul.

She sat down on the edge of the porch steps and took the _biwa_ on her lap. Sen couldn’t remember ever playing the thing, but the instrument was _here_ , it wouldn’t have been in her flat otherwise, and now, holding it in her hands, stroking the scarred wood, teasing the strings with care – it felt familiar.

There hadn’t been a _bachi_ in her flat, but somehow, she already knew, that she preferred to play with her fingernails, even though they were chopped, even torn now. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t playing for an audience. Only for herself.

She stroked the first string gently, knowing exactly how to transform the agonized croak into a tone. She tuned the instrument, and while she did this, she lost track of how she did it, because her fingers began to move on their own.

Sen played. She didn’t know the melody, but it was her song. She watched her fingers move, distracted herself as she did so, struggled with the handles, so she avoided to watch herself and continued playing. She elicited the sweet sound of the _biwa’s_ body, flattered, seduced and tempted, more demanding until she wrested it, forced it to dance to her rhythm, to her demand. The song fulfilled the backyard, reached out for the forest border and sunk deep within her mind.

As the last tone faded away, she carefully laid down the instrument, propped her elbows on her knees, buried her face inside her hands and looked into the darkness. A sob teared itself from her throat, shook her entire being, trembled under the weight of herself and she cried, cried in long, exhausted sobs.

She didn’t know, why she was crying. She didn’t want to know.

The darkness in her heart, in her soul, in her bones knew exactly, for what she lost her tears.


	3. Chapter 3

Orochimaru owned a really interesting anthology. Filled almost entirely with sciences, mainly biology, studies of the human DNA, cellular regeneration and assimilation, but almost hidden among them, there were scattered a few books of poetry. Lyric so thick and grave and severe, so overwhelming morphing the meaning of tongue so overwhelmingly, she had difficulties to even understand them.

Thrilling.

She had made herself comfortable on the couch, her legs folded, losing herself in the writings. She didn’t look up as Orochimaru opened the front door and stepped inside the living room.

He looked down at her, holding a plastic bag in his hand, the other hand buried inside the pocket of his _yukata_ and turned his gaze to the broken window.

“You didn’t really brake my window, did you?”

“I did.”

He sighed, deep and desperate. He left the bag on the coffee table, snatching the book in Sen’s hands and brought it back to the bookshelf. He knew exactly where she took it from, without even thinking.

“Eat.”, he commanded, pointing to the bag, from which he grabbed a small takeaway box and chopsticks, before heading in the direction of his private rooms. “And for all sakes, try to not do something stupid till tomorrow, _please,_ or I will make sure no one will ever find your corpse.”

Sen took the other rice box and stood up. “And how will you explain my disappearance to the Hokage?”

“I’ll tell him you broke my damned window in order to flee back to damned bloody Suna to betray us.”

He didn’t stop moving, but she could hear his sharp voice clearly through the house. She smirked in silence.

The first night back in Konoha gave her deep, dreamless sleep, almost hectic oblivion in the embrace of entire unconsciousness. Sen didn’t have a feeling for how much time had passed as she woke up. She only knew, she hadn’t awoken by herself. It was –

As she listened there was a knocking downstairs, probably at the front door. And since she could hear it upstairs, well, it had to be persistent.

Sen snaked up under the linen, throwing them aside and collecting herself from the futon on the floor to stumble on weak and tired feet to the room door. She had a good yawn as she stepped outside the room, leisurely, since she was sure, the ongoing knocking downstairs was persistent – and accustomed – enough to hold on long enough for her reaching the door.

As she stepped down the stairs, she could see Orochimaru in a very similar state than herself, still in sleepwear, messy hair – seeing this she ran her fingers through hers, in the hopeless attempt to tame it –, a tiered and rather unenthused expression on his face, as he reached for the door.

He knew exactly, what he had to expect. So he teared open the door and stared at Tsunade with an very unfriendly hiss. “Damn it, crazy hag, are you daft?”

Cheerfully, she held up a paper bag. “Bagels!”

In an instant Sen was on Orochimaru’s side, grabbing for the bag and opened the door wide enough to let Tsunade in. “You’re a goddess!”

She grinned broadly and entered the house. “I see, you’re still alive, Katsura!”

“Not much longer.” Orochimaru closed the door with a snarl. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to do engagement stuff or something?”

“There’s time enough.”, Tsunade responded, following Sen, who was heading for the kitchen and threw herself in one of the chairs in the living room, one leg above the other. She gave a look at the glassless window. “Are you renovating?”

“No. Why are you here?”

“I was at the Hokage’s office. There won’t be any missions for us for the next four weeks.”

Orochimaru stood at Sen’s side, who put the bagels on a few plates, while he was filling the tea kettle with water, as he turned his head to Tsunade in utter disbelief. “A whole month? That’s an eternity!”

Tsunade shrugged, lounging in the armchair. “Diplomacy, you know? Now with the whole inside-knowledge old men will start talking instead of fighting and we’re benched.”

Sen could feel the gaze Orochimaru gave her as she tried to concentrate carefully on the grave task of preparing breakfast.

He pulled the kettle on the stove, turned it on, leaned his back against the kitchen unit and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Where’s Jiraiya?”

“Still asleep, I guess.”

He looked at her with resignation and a wisp of despair. “Why are you _here_ , Tsunade-chan?”

“To make sure, Katsura does well _and_ to ask how we’re going to handle training in the next weeks.”

“You know, I can remember us three standing on the same battlefield, staging the very same fight. Why, for heaven’s sake, aren’t you lying half comatose in your bed, at last a little _tired?_ ”

She smiled smugly and reached for the plate Sen was offering her. “You know, to be woken by your beloved with a cup of balmy coffee in his hand…”

His face showed pure disgust. “This whole domestic thing doesn’t suite you, my dear.”

“Do I hear sexual frustration?”

Tsunade burst out laughing and although Orochimaru appreciated Sen with but a gaze, she felt lucky to find herself still breathing. “You’re dancing on  v e r y  t h i n  i c e, Katsura Sen.” He pulled the whistling teakettle from the stove and poured the hot water in the prepared teapot. “Do you know of some craftsmen, Tsunade?”

“For your window?”

“Yes. Katsura will fix this but it will need a windowpane.”

Sen waved a salute. She wasn’t going to weasel out of this situation.

“Yeah. I’ll make up the contact.”

“My gratitude.” He poured in the tea in three cups, before leaving the kitchen to head for the bathroom, taking one of the cups with him. “When I return, your cup is empty and you’re gone, _hime_.”

She chuckled and reached out for the teacup Sen brought her, before sitting with her own down at the couch.

“I think, he doesn’t like me.”

Tsunade smiled sly. “He doesn’t like anyone, or at least he pretends to. I feel a little guilty for pressing you in this situation, ‘cos I know exactly, how much he _hates_ having someone around his place.”

“But nonetheless I’m here.”

“Yeah.”

Sen sipped at the tea – great taste, rich and spicy, with the echo of citrous – and eyed the Sannin in front of her, her dreadful, dangerous beauty. It’s too bad that she was already engaged. “I can manage, thank you. And I try to take care of not being killed in this house.”

“Good girl.” Tsunade reached for her and stroked a wisp of hair beyond Sens ear. “I hope, your memory will return.”

Sen was staggered for a moment, forced to remember, why she was here, at the snake summoner’s house and not at home in her own tiny flat, curled up on her sofa, doing whatever she was used to do. She pressed a smile, and Tsunade drank up her tea, put the cup on the table and rose from the chair. “Well. I’ll take my leave to avoid annoying the bastard even more. Keep your pecker up!”

 

* * *

 

It was dark the next time she left the guestroom, past midnight. Well, she didn’t leave. It was an escape. Flight. Perhaps she would have run if there was anything to run to, nonetheless, hopeless, no escaping, no achieving, no safe ground to cast anchor, just –

– just that tiny handwriting, page by page, word by word, an entire concatenation, no end, but a very beginning, and she couldn’t help herself but wondering why the hell had she’d written this, why the hell this very painstakingly journal even existed in the first place –

– the urge to go downstairs, to leave the room now impregnated with the lines of old acts, the shadows of scattered masks.

Sen didn’t know if Orochimaru was the type of guy to keep alcohol in his house, but she didn’t mind finding out.

The light was switched on in the living room. Just the reading lamp between one of the chairs and the couch, enough to illuminate the area around the coffee table. He was asleep, leaned back against the sofa, the table full of papers, a few piles of sheets on the floor, most of them organized, an empty cup of tea between the papers on the table.

Sen bent down and took the cup, reached for the first sheet of paper as his hand took hold of hers. She glanced up in his eyes, giving up the intent and he let go of her.

She forced a smile. “Go to bed and find some sleep.”

“I could tell you the same.”

Something changed in his eyes. A glimpse of realisation, the small touch of interest. “Is everything alright?”

“No.”, she answered, her voice gentle and calm. “And it won’t be.”

“Well” He sat up, rose from the couch. “Probably nothing will ever.”

As resigning as these words were – they sounded good to her. Nothing to cheer her up, just unbeloved truth. “Would you mind if I went out for a walk in the garden?”

“Yes, I would.”, he answered, already stepping towards the _shoji_ leading to his rooms. “But as long as there is a broken window in my wall, I won’t be able to do anything about that.”

She grinned slightly, watching him disappear in the dark room and closing the _shoji_ behind him. She went in the kitchen, pouring the rest of tea in the pot in Orochimaru’s cup, sipping on the cold tea and leaving for the porch. (He didn’t lock up the door, which obviously would’ve been a vain endeavour.)

She’d been the whole day in her sleepwear, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t left the room to eat or wash herself, and there was no need for that in the moment. When she finally went back to her room, she curled up on the futon and fell asleep eventually.

When she went down the stairs the next morning, the teapot was already settled on a warmer on the kitchen range. She poured herself a cup and walked through the opened porch door. The first sun rays were settling down between twigs and branches, playing with the shadows of leaves painting patterns and ornaments on the grass, the dew glittering like ice crystals in the morning sun, flooding the dark wooden floor she stepped on. She breathed deeply in the chilly, fresh air, absorbed the sounds of the awakening forest nearby and set down next to Orochimaru on the stairs to the backyard.

He was wearing his uniform, another one, the last she saw on him probably burnt, hopefully alongside with hers she never wanted to see – let alone smell – again, in his hands a cup of tea, still steaming. He stretched his legs in the sun, enjoying the first warmth of the day, and he didn’t even look at her.

“You know. Most people wouldn’t be comfortable sitting as near at my side as you do.”

“I’m not most people, I guess.”

“Well. That’s undeniable.”

Sen could tell it was _he_ being uncomfortable with her closeness, so she slipped aside politely and sensed the loss of tension in his posture she hadn’t been aware yet.

“Ready for training?”

He nodded quietly, lifted the cup and took a sip, his eyes directed somewhere afar.

“And, I assume, I’m going to stay here?”

“Exactly.”

“And you trust me not to run away?”

“I trust you’ll recompense for breaking my window by staying here to wait for the supply deliverance and by being a nice little spy repairing the bloody mess you left behind.”

His words followed a peaceful moment of silence, the two of them just drinking tea, as Sen embraced the opportunity to destroy the moment, before he could do it.

“Are you aware that I’ve never repaired a broken window before?”

“You’re a person with a lot of talents, Katsura. I’m confident you’ll handle this.”

“There are just a few people capable of making a compliment sound like an insult.”

“Oh. I’m flattered.” Orochimaru finished his tea and put the cup down on the floor, rising to his feet. “I take my leave.”

Sen could hardly hear his disappearing steps on the wooden floor. She didn’t look back at him but down on his tea cup next to her, wondering if he assumed her to take it away or if he just didn’t care. Sen stayed there, in silence, looking at the forest behind the garden as Orochimaru did before, feeling the hot porcelain on her fingertips, enjoying the moment before she would go inside to take a shower and change clothes.

She took the damn cups inside, of course.

 

* * *

 

After the glazier arrived at the place, Sen decided, it was time to go out for a walk. She didn’t expect Orochimaru to return before noon, and what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over. So she left the house, bona fide a craftsman Tsunade-san had chosen won’t nose around the snake Sannin’s house, and she had to go _out._ There were things to do. And she couldn’t stay locked in that house any longer just to spare the snake summoner a headache.

Sen moved fast, heading directly to the village’s offices, knowing exactly where to look for, because it was engraved in her whole behaviour, telling her that there was stuff to do for more than two days since she arrived in Konoha.

With a registration number, things were so much easier. No one would ask stupid questions she couldn’t answer, no one would be suspicious of her intentions she herself wasn’t entire sure about. She just gave the number, someone compared her face with the photo in the registration books as well as her signature and then she was issued with documents to fill in for the archive, in order to get the payment for the last nine months prowling round country borders.

To her own surprise, the envelope was pretty big.

After paying the village for the rent of her flat – pleasantly cheap as expected for such a tiny room – and straying through the markets to get some food she couldn’t make out in the snake Sannin’s home, she finally went back to the house at the outskirts of the village to attend to the matter with the broken window.

 

* * *

 

“How’s the spy doing?” Jiraiya was still breathing hard, though he managed a sly smile, sitting on the ground in front of Orochimaru, who took a gulp from the water bottle Tsunade handed him.

“How should she be doing?” Orochimaru wondered, passing the bottle down to his exhausted teammate.

“Is she remembering anything?”

“If she is, she doesn’t tell me.”

Jiraiya lifted his gaze up in the sky, considering the situation. “I wonder why she wouldn’t just be examined by the Intelligence Division.”

“Funny you say that.”, Orochimaru grinned mirthless. “I was asking myself the exact same question.” He watched Tsunade expectantly.

She shrugged. “If it isn’t any kind of genjutsu, it might damage her memory even more.”

“What a shame.”

“You’re supposed to look after her, so why didn’t you bring her with you?”, Jiraiya asked.

“Because”, he gave a fine smirk. “she’s well locked away where she actually is.”

“She looked fine yesterday.” Tsunade responded to Jiraiya, eying at Orochimaru. “Quite unchained and in a good mood. You’re getting soft, you know?” She wiped off the sweat from her forehead, waiting for Orochimaru’s counter.

“After your little visit, I got the impression it would be the best for everyone’s sake, to chain her up and gag her again.”

“So, she’s locked up down in your basement, strapped on a laboratory bench, only waiting for you to come back?”

“Exac–” Orochimaru broke off as he got the undercurrent Jiraiya was insinuating at. He rolled his eyes, taking the water bottle, Jiraiya was offering back to pass it to Tsunade, before he lunged forward, in a speed Jiraiya wouldn’t even know what hit him, if he wasn’t already too aware of it. The air was pressed out of his lungs, a gasp escaped his throat, eyes wide but with a hint of amusement, returning the look of Orochimaru’s eyes that were already gutting him with great pleasure. The entire snake summoner’s weight laid on his chest, pressed down by his knees, so it forced Jiraiya to release chakra in order to prevent Orochimaru from simply breaking his rips.

“You’re such a disgusting pervert, Jiraiya.”

“Come on”, somehow, he managed to choke up a laugh. “The way I know you, I bet the imagination is pleasing to you.”

They both could hear Tsunade’s deep growl from behind.

Orochimaru smirked. “Not exactly.” His eyes narrowed with pure amusement, a nasty, sly smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he stroked one finger across Jiraiya’s cheek, a flick of ravenblack hair dropping down, almost touching the toad sage’s lips. “This imagination would be very more pleasing with…other company.”

“Tsunade!”

“Boys.” She moved closer, not really keen to help Jiraiya out of Orochimaru’s teasing. He finally was done with him and rose on his feet again, not willing to give Jiraiya a helping hand as he picked himself up.

“How is it that everyone calls _me_ a pervert!”

Tsunade ignored him deliberately, addressing her attention to her other, less embarrassing teammate. “Why don’t you take Katsura with us for a few drinks tonight?”

He ached his eyebrows. “Who’s telling you that _I_ will show up tonight?”

“Come on, bastard.”, Jiraiya moaned. “’Cos we didn’t spent any time beyond missions or training in weeks, perhaps?”

“Perhaps there’s a reason for this.”, he chuckled, turning on his heels to leave.

“Day after tomorrow, same time?”, Tsunade shouted after her leaving teammate.

“For sure, _hime_.”

 

* * *

 

Sen heard the front door and his almost silent steps, how he pulled out his sandals and eventually moving over the wooden floor in the living room. Sen, lying on the couch, lifted her eyes from the journal in her hands, looking over the edge of the notebook to Orochimaru, who had head towards the kitchen to find the bag with Sen’s purchases on the kitchen table. With a sigh he laid down his own grocery bag aside hers.

“We really need to coordinate with each other.” He went back in the living room, eying for the window. “So, you actually did it.”

“Yeah.”, she looked up at him. “I guess you were right about my hidden talents, but…I really wouldn’t touch it.”

His fingertips froze a few inches in front of the glass, he nodded calmly in agreement and went back into the kitchen. “And so, you left the house. I _really_ should gag and tie you up, throwing you in the basement. What’s this?” He held the box of tea Sen had bought.

Sen closed the notebook and put it down on the coffee table. “Some tea that I thought could match your taste.”

“What for?”

“An acknowledgement for not throwing me in the basement chained and gagged, I guess.”

“Hm.” He gave the box a last look, before he reached for the teakettle. Sen stood up and walked into the kitchen to join him, preparing the teapot, while Orochimaru filled in the water and put the kettle on the stove, then reached for two tea cups, and Sen opened the box of tea and searched in the drawers for a spoon.

“Here.”

She took the teaspoon Orochimaru offered her and gave the tealeaves in the sieve, breathing in the rich spicy flavour. They leaned back at the kitchen range, side by side, waiting for the water to boil. As the kettle hardly started to whistle, Orochimaru brewed the tea.

“Would you be content with about three minutes?”

“Very fine.”

The tea was golden and smelled of bergamot and earth, sweet and delicate and overarching calming. She took the offered cup from his hand and reached it to her lips as well as he did, sipped slowly and carefully. Despite the calming scent the taste was refreshing and vitalizing. The Sannin was pleasantly surprised.

“I have to confess, at least you seem to understand something about tea.”

“Well, it was you that called me a girl with a lot of talents.”

He chuckled. “That’s true.”

They remained in silence for a while. It felt good to taste the bracing tea, to breathe in the delicious flavour and just enjoy someone’s company, who at least enjoyed the silence as much as she did, but there was a problem: Albeit she was aware about the fact that she liked silence and staying alone, yes even _solitude,_ at the moment she couldn’t bear this. In silence it came back. And she wasn’t ready to let it come back. So she had to disturb the silence, which she knew he was enjoying as well, though she waited as long as it took they both to finish their first cup.

“Will you lock me up again?”

“Of course, I will.” He poured himself another cup of tea, offering her the pot and she reached her cup to him.

“Even if that means, there will be another broken window?”

He hissed and put the teapot back on the warmer, after he filled her cup. “Do we really have to go through this again, Sen-chan?”

“It seems like it. Or you’ll trust me to come back, like the good girl I am.”

“You pardon me when I laugh.”

“You can’t keep me here like some kind of a prisoner. You’ve been told to have an eye on me, ok, I understand that. But I’m also supposed to get my memory back, and just sitting in your house, as lovely as it may be, won’t do me any favour. I have to go out. Walk through the village. Stroll at the forest border. I need this to make up my mind. To _remember._ ”

“Actually, I wonder, if you really want to.”

Sen didn’t answer and again silence fell, but this time not above them, taking in the two of them as a whole, letting them join the silence together, but rather it fell between them, separating them, so it didn’t feel pleasant at all.

It was Orochimaru who broke the silence this time: “I could imagine letting you out for a daily walk, let’s say for about an hour?”

“Like I’m a dog or something?”

“No. A dog doesn’t have the brains to question everything I’m saying. And it would be kept on a leash. No, actually, I think that not even you could cause any damage in such a short time, or give out information about of the village.”

“You’re paranoid, you know that?”

“Keeps me alive. And for you it should be some sort of occupational disease, shouldn’t it?”

“Well, but I’m a spy, my friend.”

He chuckled, filled his cup again, already heading for the kitchen door, as he cast a glance back his shoulder, amusement in his eyes. “Can you cook?”

“I think. Shall I try?”

“Maybe not.”, he laughed amused. “I’ll care for it. Will half past 6 be fine for you?”


	4. Chapter 4

It was after dinner when Sen decided, now would be a good time for a first one-hour-walk.

Sen strolled along the forest’s edge, solidifying darkness chasing the evening’s twilight away as the sky above her melted into a deep purple and still, dark blue. She could barely see the ground in front of her, her feet sweeping through knee-high grass, now and again she stumbled over a branch or a stone, but never fell, never lost her balance in the dark.

She wondered how she had gotten herself in this whole mess.

To be honest, it wasn’t like she had been absolutely clueless what situation she was forcing herself into, but, yeah, ok, perhaps she didn’t consider everything as thoroughly as the circumstances would’ve required. But, damn it, who would’ve thought that she would end up like this, constantly under watch.

She stared, stared in the dark beyond her eyes, stared at the mask in her hands, had it worn for the last three days, went over the lines of her script, over and over again, and it still didn’t _fit._ She had made a decision, then Jiraiya found the scrolls. Had been head over heels first, before she could think it through, before she got the next bits of information from the Hokage himself, and maybe – just _maybe_ – this should have been enough to don the mask on her face, step out in the light and recite the lines she wrote herself to play the role of a new – not hers, not really, but hopefully better – life.

But for whatever reasons she had decided, one fateful day back in history, to write it all down. With the nightmarish thoroughness of a professional. Date, time, order, process, outcome, payment, even the _fucking weather._

The truth is, Orochimaru hadn’t been nearly as offending as everyone thought he had been when he blamed her for pretending to lose her memory. Not that she hadn’t suffered a blatant blow to the head. Her memory still was a splintering cobweb with fragile lines of a very complex and very complicated life. But, to be honest with herself at least for once, it wasn’t as –

Sen bumped into something solid, thrusted her knee against a wooden fence. She cursed, let her hand settle on top the fence to stabilise herself, rubbed her knee and shook off the thoughts haunting her. She was already back at Orochimaru’s house and had stumbled into his garden fence. She sighed. Watched to the lonely, comfortable house beyond the backyard from the dark. There was still light in the living room and the kitchen, so he hadn’t retreated into his own rooms yet. She didn’t really have an itch for a talk and she was certain Orochimaru didn’t either. But the thought of finding tea in the kitchen was tempting enough to abandon the urge to make Orochimaru’s nightmares come true by running away and leaving him to deal with an undoubtedly unpleased Hokage.

Sen cut the nasty smile from her face and climbed over the fence, went through the backyard and along the veranda to the front door. While she took off her shoes in the _genkan,_ she heard the rustling of paper and then his voice, before she entered the living room.

“Sen. Sen. Sen.” Her name rolled from his tongue, thoughtfully, a smirk on his lips, she could hear in his voice already, before she walked to him and stood in front of the seating area. He was laying on the sofa as she did a few hours ago, his legs laid one over another, his eyes detached from the book in his hands to wander up to hers, locking her into this glance, captured within his golden irises. A smirk rested on his bloodless, thin lips, widening into a grin, exposing his white teeth, snake-like fangs flashing. In these predator’s eyes seemed to be an uncanny joy, astonishment and even something, she didn’t want to see there: appreciation.

One of his hands was playing absently with his _hitae ate,_ in his other laid a notebook, she had become much too familiar with in the last days.

“What a bustling little one we are, aren’t we?” His chuckle was deep and fearsome; it was joyful, abnormal and exciting just as his gaze was, drilling in her very inside to tear it out. He dropped his _hitae ate_ on the floor, without any care, laid his eyes again on the pages, filled painstakingly with this tiny, _disgusting_ handwriting. “I have to give you my apologizes, my very dear. I’ve utterly misjudged you. I couldn’t imagine, but – marrying the Kazekage’s son, living _two years_ on his side in order to gather information – others would’ve trod easier paths, but _you_ are _adorable_ , my love.” He raised from his laying position, sat up, while he was flipping through the pages, with that disgusting smile on his lips, that was so awfully  a d m i r i n g. “I suppose you must’ve been on some sort of birth control to prevent certain side effects, weren’t you? There are just a couple of people capable of doing what is necessary. And your work, I have to confess, I admire.” He looked up to her, meeting her eyes again, undeterred by her frozen expression. “I wonder, what has been your masterpiece so far? As I take it from your records, this here dates back almost eight years, so I guess, you’ve only improved in the last years and reached utterly new highs in the art of betrayal and investigation, haven’t you?”

She struck. Hit her flat hand against the notebook to send it to the floor, landing on open pages, slithering across the wood. Her eyes burned into his, these unimpressed and at the same time so very excited eyes.

“Enough”

Her voice was soundless. His smirk didn’t fade.

“You’re an artist, Sen. You shouldn’t be ashamed of – ”

“Not a single word, Orochimaru.” She breathed in deeply, couldn’t get rid of the feeling, that her lungs didn’t work as they should. “You understand  n o t h i n g.”

His smirk faded into a smile, almost compassionately, yes – even sympathetic. “I understand far too well, my love.” He raised to his feet, raven hair bordering the features of his face, stepped forward, onto the coffee table, onto his own records and notes, carelessly, took a next step, crossed the table and with a last step descended to the floor right in front of her, only a hand’s width between them.

The sickness set down in her blood, rinsing her flesh with disgust and horror, not mirrored in his eyes, these eyes, never looked like this at her before. In the tenseness of his body there was the smallest intention to reach out for her and that broke the spell.

Sen turned away, grabbed the book from the floor and went to the stairs.

“Sen.”

She didn’t answer, didn’t look back. She went upstairs, heard her name called again, went down the hallway to the guestroom, entered and shut the door close behind her. Didn’t reach for the light. Only heard the breathing, looked down in the darkness, the darkness in the room, in her very soul. She hurled the notebook into the eclipse, heard it fall, she just stood there, stood and stared, stared within the dark, the entire eclipse, didn’t know for how long, didn’t care, petty, so _petty._

Sen leaned against the door in her back, sank to the ground, sank in the cold water, embracing her like an old friend, this feeling, black water all around, you sink, weightless, don’t know up from down, you try to swim, try to move up again, bursting the water’s surface to _breathe_ , but there’s no up and there’s no down, you swim, you sink, you’re weightless, waving blindly through the dark, get tired, finally, and you know, there’s no up there for you to reach. Only down. Sen opened her mouth to breathe in the cold and black water. It smashed her lungs, forcing her to gasp, cough, a retch, she cried out, but there was no air left in her lungs, speechless terror, no voice escaping her mouth, only choking sounds, and then she threw back her head, smashed it against the door, caressing pain spreading in her mind, made her numb and unfeeling for one single precious moment.

Again, she smashed her head back against the door, again and again, heard a whine and hardly recognized, that it came from her throat, hit herself until there was only vertigo left in her head, a heavy dizziness, no longer allowing her to continue her movements.

She sank her head and an awful sickness exploded in her. Sen writhed forward, pressing her hands between her legs on the floor, the room spinning around her head, she swallowed, heaved and swallowed again. Carefully, she went on her hands and knees and hauled herself to the futon, crouched on it, buried her head in her arms; tried to sleep.

If she had any luck, she would never wake up again.

 

* * *

 

The sun was shining the next day, brightly and warm, driving away the fog of autumn-morning. Sunrays stroked her naked feet as she went downstairs, treading on the wooden floor of the living room, filled with the morning sun. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the coffee table in his back, his legs outstretched in the warm sunlight, his attention on the papers in his hands, others covering the floor around him.

Sen tiptoed over the sheets, stepped across his legs and admired his gift to ignore the whole world around him in order to stay focused. She visited the bathroom, went in the kitchen to fetch some tea and took another look on his bookcases. It could’ve been fine. The silence between them was pleasant, not strange. Orochimaru was one of hundred men she could stay with in absolute tranquillity. But Sen was upset. To call a spade a spade, she was pissed.

“Don’t you have access to the village’s labs?”

“Of course, I do.”

He didn’t look up. And neither did he make any attempt to say more. Sen’s finger slipped over the wooden shelf, her eyes resting on a framed photograph. “So, why are you here?”

“Someone assigned me to have an eye on a particular person.” Not the least annoyance in his voice. How bothering.

On the photo, she saw Sarutobi Hiruzen as a younger man, though he seemed to be the type of guy, to have been born looking old and exhausted. In front of him were his three young Genin. Funny to think how innocent they were once. Just kids. Not aware that in only a few years they would be sent to the frontline, appointed far too young as Jonin, so far the youngest Jonin in the history of Konohagakure. At this time she couldn’t imagine, that in a few years the yet unborn Hatake-boy would break this doubtful record. Dust laid on the frame, not touched in a very long time. But Sen was staggered that the photograph had still its place on the bookshelf.

“And a guy like you doesn’t have a study in his house?”

“This guy does, indeed. Does my presence bother you, Sen-chan?”

“Not in the least. I’m just curious, why you’re sitting on the floor.”

She heard a sigh and felt great satisfaction with herself. “Because of the sun.” Sen turned her head to look at him. He finally met her gaze, getting the needle. “I like to enjoy the sun and, as this room has it the most time of the day, I enjoy myself sitting here. But you’re obviously furious with me due to our little conversation yesterday evening – well, _I_ was conversing, _you_ favoured ignoring me – so, I guess, you won’t let me do my work in peace, until I retract into my study. Do I have this right?”

She blinked. “Actually, that’s a pretty good summary.”

“Very well.” He flung the file in his hands on the ground, convinced that this woman would cost him his sanity if he won’t put an end to this problem _now._ “Do you play _Go_ , Katsura?”

She arched her eyebrows. “Well – yes.”

“Marvellous. I make you an offer, then. If you win, you may leave this house whenever you want to. I’ll give Sarutobi-sensei fake information about your stay and you may do whatever you please.”

Sen crossed her arms in front of her chest. She looked warily at the Sannin. “And if you win?”

“If I win”, he continued and raised to his feet, in a movement too gracile for a human. “you’ll stop annoying me and do what I order you to do. You’ll stay at this house until the Hokage decides otherwise. You won’t leave without permission, won’t brake anything and will keep your mouth shut. How does this sound?” He stood in front of her, looking down at her and capturing Sen’s gaze, tried to read her eyes. Sen twisted her mouth, pondering his words, her fingers closed around her arms.

“To make sure, you’re not going to cheat on me – how is your _Go_?”

“Well”, he smirked sly, put one hand on his side. “since the only people in my ‘circle of acquaintances’ playing _Go_ are Sarutobi-sensei and Jiraiya, who I barely can bear long enough to finish a single game with, I’m a bit out of practice. I assume that a _kunoichi_ with your qualification will be more than a worthy adversary.”

She was aware, that this wasn’t an answer. He was out to take advantage of her. But she couldn’t resist. The thought of playing games with one of the Sannin – literally and in a metaphorical sense – was too tempting.

She held her hand out to him.

Orochimaru took it, gently enclosing her hand with his long, sleek fingers, smirking satisfied. “Let me prepare the game then, my dear.”

“Go ahead.”

His smirk widened into a grin. He left the living room, opened the _shoji_ to his private rooms, revealed the view inside the study, which Sen had been musing about, and took the game material. He flung the _zabuton_ (traditional seat cushion for _Go_ ) on the sun-drenched floor in front of the veranda windows, put the _goban_ ( _Go_ -playboard) with both _goke_ (wooden box with the _go-ishi,_ the gaming pieces) on top of it, between them.

Sen glanced at the delicate material. The wood was of kaya, the lenticular _go-ishi_ made of white shells and black slate. “Beautiful material.”

“A family heirloom.” His smile revealed his delight with her admiration. He offered her to sit. “Do we allow suicide?”

“I don’t mind.” She set down cross-legged, while he was copying her movement, offering her the _goke_ with the black _go-ishi_ as he was the challenger. Sen took the _goke,_ put it on the right side of the _goban_ on the floor and took the first stone. It was on her to introduce, to start as she pleased, even so she decided to stand strict on ceremony. Sen placed the _go-ishi_ in the right upper corner, so she had to bow to Orochimaru. She didn’t drop her gaze. She looked into his eyes, returning the taunting amusement in these with her own.

He grinned and exposed his snakelike fangs.

They took their time. Sen noticed how Orochimaru observed her every movement, the practiced elegance with which she held the _go-ishi_ between her slender middle and index finger before placing it with the slightest _klick_ on the wood. She didn’t need to look into his eyes to observe him. His moves told her everything.

She was sure, Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen was a very sophisticated opponent, but in her eyes Orochimaru’s opening moves were aggressive, even impatient. It didn’t surprise her. The snake Sannin was a front-line soldier. A careful one, every move thoroughly considered, and so he was used to strike before his opponent could make a deadly encounter. She remembered her own _sensei,_ her fingers placing every stone on the lines with care. _We don’t play to win this game, Sen-chan. We play to understand. One single game might reveal more of someone’s personality than months of research could._

Orochimaru bared his very soul to her. If he did know, he didn’t care. His game was wonderful. Even poetic; although there wasn’t any balance behind it. No higher philosophy of black and white, death and life, no serenity in his decisions. He played to win. And Sen had never played to win. His moves betrayed him to her, disclosed her, that he was set up with her style of play, lingering on the edges of the board, claiming only small fields, easily overtaken, but oh, her borders were spiked with traps and he was so good finding them in an instant, looking for possibilities to evade them and taking over her small territories, while he tried to consolidate his own borders, but after all he still wasn’t able to sweep her away.

Her style of play was to endure until the very end and then take over. And he was too aware of that. But apparently, he wasn’t used with this style, because he didn’t manage to adapt.

“You use this style of play to test your target, don’t you?”

She took another move, not looking up. “Exactly.”

He huffed slightly. “Did you play with the Kazekage’s son before you decided to marry him? Or had this been a foregone conclusion?”

She froze for a single second, a tremor, hardly noticeable, in her fingertips. “I’m sure you’re very aware of the laws of the game. It’s very unpolite to distract your opponent.”

“Do I distract you, Sen?”

“Conversation is always distracting, Orochimaru.”

He chuckled softly, while placing one of his stones to close the line and returning two of hers, as he took over one of her fields. “You were being unpolite by leaving our little conversation yesterday.”

She passed, waiting for his next move to guess his strategy. “As I remember, it was you who read my mission logs.”

“Well, it laid on my table. I thought it was one of mine.”

Now she looked up. Her gaze met his, amused, even cheerfully, but in a venomous way, while hers was filling with anger. “You could’ve closed it as soon as you recognized it wasn’t.” She removed one of his stones, closing the gap in her line.

“I could have done that.”, he confessed with a smirk on his slender lips. “But I had been too taken with the content.”

“Bastard.” Another stone, breaking through his lines.

“Do you really think, you had a choice?”

“There’s _always_ a choice.”

“Go on. Tell me the other possibilities. I guess you spent a lot of time thinking about this issue.”

“I could’ve planted myself in the Kazekage’s guard.”

Another white stone. Orochimaru passed. “It would’ve taken you much longer to gain enough faith. And the risk to be busted would’ve been enormous.”

Black slid into white territory. “I could’ve –”

“Sen.” His hand griped her wrist before she could place the next black _go-ishi_. “Did you assassinate anyone during this mission you hadn’t been ordered to?”

She looked up at him, confused. “No”

“So, what?”

She frowned, her hand still in his, the black stone between her fingers. “To end one’s life with a well-aimed blade or to burn it to the ground – there’s a difference. A _blatant_ difference. He loved me.”

“And you didn’t love him.” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t answer.

Orochimaru let go off her hand. She passed, laid the _go-ishi_ back.

“That’s not the only thing.”

“Tell me.” He took his move carefully, musing about the situation on the _goban_.

“An assassination-order to remove two spies in our lines. There were a few possible candidates. I had a suspicion. So, I took the photograph of the suspects and went to their home in Iwagakure, where I suspected them to come from. I asked the boy, which I believed to be their son, about them. Told him I’d been from a hospital near the front-line and needed his confirmation about his parents’ identity. Guess what happened next.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“Did I really have to make this child responsible for his parents’ death?”

“Well.” The smirk had become lesser on his lips, but it didn’t disappear. He overlooked the playboard. “We are at war.”

“You stand in front of your enemy and you know, it will be them or us. Standing on the ground of combat, they know, they possibly won’t come back alive. I bring war to the civilian population. Sneak beyond the thin line between battlefield and civilian life, between death and life and damage their illusion of security. We both are orphans, Orochimaru. What would it be if you had been responsible for your parents’ death?”

“I don’t know.”, he admitted with a calm voice, hovering the white stone over the lines. “But even if we fight on different battlegrounds, I know that this illusion, of which you’re talking, is just that: an illusion. You think, you have a choice?” He placed the stone, removed hers. “There’s no choice. We get our orders and we kill, as fast as possible with as few losses as possible.” Another stone. “Yes, you destroyed this man. And you ruined the life of that child. And how many lives did you spare with these sacrifices?” Another stone enclosing hers, the trap springing. “You have brought your finesse to mastery. No need to blame yourself.”

“Finesse?”, she snarled. “Assassinating children in order to brake their fighting parents, threatening defenceless people, cheating and betraying, stealing, lying – you call _that_ f i n e s s e?”

He laughed, nothing warm in this sound, only wicked and venomous, as his gaze laid piercing on her. “Don’t tell me you didn’t ever enjoy it – the thrill, the sheer _power_ you have over anyone’s fate as you decide, their future laying in your hands – don’t tell me you haven’t become intoxicated by this potency of yours.”

She felt the scream concentrating in her chest, heavy and violently, she clenched her teeth, suppressed every sound pressing against her throat, clenched her shivering hand into a fist and released it again. Then she slapped him.

Sen was certain he would dodge, would just grasp her hand and give her that smile of his, but he didn’t, he saw her hand flying in his direction and didn’t move, endured the stroke of her backhand, her knuckles hitting his cheek, pulling his head aside.

He gasped, staggered, reached his hand for his burning cheek and looked at her, marvelled and excited. The smirk returned to his lips, covered his face, glowed in his eyes mesmerizing her soul with this one challenging look.

“Is that all you have, Katsura?”

His smirk grew into a wild and greedy grin, encouraging her, and she raised her hand again, felt burning and icecold wrath inside her core, smashed once more into his face, hit his other cheek, she heard his laugh and then she threw the _goban_ aside, lunged for him, – “try harder, child!” – her fists hit against his face, her flat hands against his ears, she brought him down and even on his back he didn’t stop her, gave himself to her wrath, her desperation, her agony. His laugh encouraged her, enticed and seduced her anger to concentrate it all in her hands, in her fingers smashing against his chest, touching for chakrapoints, her fists graving in his side, forcing him to cough.

Breathing hard but steady she looked down at him, her hands clawed in the fabric of his _yukata._ His ink-black hair spilled upon the floor, scratches gracing his face, a trickle of blood covering his mouth corner, his bursted lips bloody, an ease swelling at his left eye marking where soon would be a black eye. His fitful breath was teared apart from coughing, a feeble chuckle sliding from his tongue. He still was grinning at her. But she couldn’t go any further.

Not her body was exhausted. But her mind.

She met his gaze, this look, not condemning, not pitying, merely compassionate. Her breath began to fasten, she didn’t know why, he sat up, with her on top of him, not releasing her gaze from his. His hand caressed her cheek, cupped the soft skin and stroke with his thumb across her lips. Sen didn’t turn away, she just felt the unexpected warm and gentle touch, without any greed or lust. Just comfort. She closed her eyes and felt his arm around her shoulders, she gave in in his embrace and leaned at him, rested her forehead against his shoulder. She didn’t cry. There weren’t any tears left. Besides, she wasn’t the woman to cry in a man’s arm. This was all she needed. And never did know, that she needed it.

Sen released herself from him eventually, pulling back from his arm, slipping down from him to sit on the floor with a deep sigh. He looked at her, calmly, finally lifting his hand to his face to wipe away the blood on his skin.

“Tea?”

“How can you ask.”

He smirked and rose to his feet, stepping into the kitchen. She followed him with her eyes, watched him as he bowed over the sink and spit blood. A small chuckle escaped his lips.

“I didn’t think you little beast would know about chakrapoints.”

“You would wonder what I know about.”

She watched him coming back, offering her one of two cups of tea, took it and waited for him to sit in front of her. The sun had wandered across the sky, but still flooded the warm floor, caressing them in its sweet embrace. Orochimaru looked at her, stroking back his hair falling across his face, taking his time to give her the opportunity to prepare for the question which was overdue to ask.

“What did you do on the battlefield, Sen?”

She took a deep breath, looking away from him and out of the window, in the sky. It was a lovely day. The sky was so clear, emptied by the autumn winds above, left only the sated blue.

“I was there to die.”

She heard his cup placed on the floor. “I see.” Sen looked in hers, the golden fluid, smooth and calming, like the sun. “I was…tired. I wanted it to end.”

His voice was smooth and calming, though it broke through the silence, which followed her words without mercy. “You weren’t there to commit suicide.”

Eventually, she led her gaze back into his eyes, confused. “I’m not quite sure what you mean by that.”

He sighed, leaning his back against the window. “You see. The two of us, we’re not the type of person to throw away our lives. We’ve taken countless lives. We don’t give away ours.”

“I don’t want to let you down, but that’s exactly what I intended to do.”

“No.” He smiled softly at her. “If you had intended to commit suicide, you would’ve done it. No room for contingencies. You’re a genius, Sen, a perfectionist, you leave nothing to chance. One blade long enough, a _tanto_ would just work fine, stabbed in here”, he pulled his fingers in the left side of his stomach, “slit to there”, stroke them across his lower torso, “and it would be done. No chance of escaping. But you”, and he raised his fingers from his stomach, addressing to her, “decided to leave your life to chance. There was a chance for surviving. If you really had wished to die, you would’ve contrived ways and means to make sure of it.”

She sighed deeply and despaired, laid back on the floor, looking up to the ceiling. “So, that means I’m a coward. Incapable of killing myself after all these lives I already took.”

“No.” He shook his head, certainty in his voice. “You have been tired and desperate. You thought you couldn’t bear it any longer. So, you put yourself to the test. And now you won’t ever do it again.” His voice forced her gaze back into his, determined, almost threatening. “The lives we live, a _shinobi’s_ life, aren’t easy, I don’t have to tell you. For myself it is easier to dissociate from my targets, I don’t have to learn about them in the way you have to, don’t even have to talk to them. Your resistance was crumbling, now you’ll need to gather the strength for building it up again. What was that with your amnesia?”

She was taken by surprise as he finally asked _that_ question, while she still tried to figure out his words. She swallowed, breathed in and tried to put her mind together. “It was real. I woke up and nothing was left. And somehow, it felt like a relief. A blessing. I decided, it would be the best not to remember, get on with it, start anew.”

“But you remembered.”

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

Sen shook her head. “Fragments. A few more of them returning every day.”

They drank their tea in silence, giving them both time to think about everything they said. There was a feeling of guilt in Sen’s bones, unpleasant and annoying, likewise relief. After days, not everything and everyone seemed to be indifferent any longer. Sen felt the hard wood in her back, the sun on her skin, warming through her clothes. Her hand slid across the floor, collecting a few _go-ishi_ and running them threw her fingers.

“What are we doing about the bet?”

“Well.” The smirk returned to his face. “It won’t be necessary any longer.”

“Hm?”

“I’ll see the Hokage to inform him, that your memory has returned. There’s no need to keep you under observation any longer.”

“And he will believe you?”

“I’ll make sure of that. Of course, you’ll have to undergo an interrogation by the ANBU.”

“That’s ok. I have the feeling, this won’t be my first rodeo.”

“Besides, _I_ have a feeling you would’ve won this game anyway.” This confession elicited a satisfied smile from her lips. “But first”, he stood up, arranging his clothes. “I’ll see Tsunade, before anyone else sees me beaten up by you.”

He smirked down on her, before he turned to leave. She watched him go, raised her voice.

“Orochimaru.”

He cast a glaze back over his shoulder. “Hm?”

“Thank you.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sen breathed in the sweet scent of warm skin against hers as she awoke. Tired, she opened her eyes, observing her surroundings in order to remember where she was.

Carefully she sat up, the blanket falling down in her lap, exposing her upper body, while her eyes were fixed on the sleeping beauty by her side. Sen leaned down to her, whispered a kiss against her naked shoulder, before raising from the bed. There was the numb feeling of too much alcohol the night before, not exactly a headache but close enough, some dizziness in her mind aggravating her movements as she reached for her clothes, spread across the floor. She dressed her lingerie, pulled her tights above her wiry legs and slipped into the black dress she obviously had been wearing the other night. On tiptoes she sneaked through the apartment, looking for the entrance, gathered her court shoes from the floor in the _genkan_ and slipped through the door, closing it gently behind her.

Sen caught a breath. Perhaps she should do something about her recent habit of not caring for names nor personality of those she was sleeping with.

She left the building, finding herself at some marketplace. It was early morning, the air chilly and clear, just a few people outside already, preparing market stalls, delivering supplies and busy with staring at the woman in the shift dress, carrying her courts in one hand and walking in tights through the street.

Sen wasn’t heading for her flat. She needed some fresh air to get the dizziness out of her head. So, she found herself strolling along the gravelled lane, heading to the old houses of old families at the edge of the old woods. Sen didn’t go for the front door. Her quiet steps led her onto the porch, following it around the corner of the house toward the backyard.

He was sitting by the stairs, his gaze far beyond the visible. He didn’t need to look back to know, that it was her.

“Tea’s on the stove.”

Sen threw her shoes to the ground, wiped her feet clean and stepped into the house, getting herself some tea, before she came out again to sit down by his side, paying attention to leave enough space between the two of them. Carefully, she sipped the hot tea, looked at him to notice that he would soon leave for sparring with his team, before her gaze lost itself in the distance.

He didn’t ask how she was doing and she appreciated that. He knew that nothing was alright and probably never would be. They both understood that simple truth, and here, at this backyard on this early autumn-morning it felt like no one else in the world was understanding this.

She took another sip and then laid on her back with a deep sigh.

Orochimaru smirked, looking finally down to examine her. His gaze wandered across her appearance. “That dress suits you very well, my dear.”

“Thanks. Handy on missions. Distraction guaranteed.”

“So then, you treat getting drunk and seducing women on a day off as a mission?”

“I guess…wait. How do you – ?”

He narrowed his eyes in pure amusement, smirking at her. “You know, I’ve got a pretty good sense of smell.” He licked his lips, with his snake-like tongue, reminding her of this permanent jutsu that gave him the ability of serpent senses.

“Embarrassing.” She starred at him, too flabbergasted to blush. “And you can tell that I’ve slept with a woman because it smells different from men?”

“Yes.”

Sen moaned in annoyance, hiding her face between her hands. “You’re killing me.”

He chuckled mischievously, pretty sure she wasn’t as embarrassed as she pretended to be. “Despite of your delicious sense”, she moaned again, his grin widened, “you look like you’ve had a hard day’s night.”

“I won’t deny anything.”

She turned on her side, taking the cup to drink, enjoying the heat flooding through her body. She could lay here forever, in the chilly autumn-morning-air.

“I have to leave soon. You may stay, if you like.”

As if he would have read her mind. But she slowly shook her head and sat up again. “No, it’s ok. You can lock the house.” She drank up and put the cup between them, grabbed for her shoes and rose to her feet. “Today’s training?”

He nodded, watching her considerately. “Jiraiya needs to be beaten up every few days or he becomes even more distressing than he already is.”

Sen smirked. “And today’s your turn?”

“No, Tsunade’s. But I can’t resist watching the show.”

She laughed nastily. “There are quite some sexual tensions between Jiraiya and you, you know that?”

“Thin ice, Katsura.”

She gave him her best smile as she turned, slipping into her courts to walk home with some more dignity. “See you around.”

He waved over his shoulder carelessly, didn’t watch her leaving, because it wouldn’t be the last time that she would find herself in front of his house, and Sen would wonder, not for the first time, why the snake Sannin let his door open for her.

The thought trailed off, slipped from her mind’s grasp. She didn’t pay attention. She found herself in front of her door, not knowing exactly how she ended up here. And she didn’t pay attention.

Sen pulled the key out of her dress’ pocket and unlocked the door, stepping in her room. She divested herself from the shoes, stumbling towards the sofa to let herself fall down with a relieved sigh.

She could sleep the entire day. She also could play on her _biwa._ Or read a book. Or just sleep the entire day. The possibilities were endless.

Sen turned on her back to look at the ceiling. The sun struggled through the morning-fog, first faint rays melting in her room, trickling on books, shelves, on the floor, haunting the ceiling.

She didn’t know how much time had passed. It was so hard to follow. The most time in her life she didn’t care, but when she did it was frightening. There were moments she was fairly aware that she should move, that she had to move, to eat, to drink, to do _anything._ But she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She wouldn’t be able to move, as if there had been a heavy weight on her, suppressing every possibility to gain control over herself. Could only watch herself, like from the outside.

Mostly, she didn’t care. Just accepted it.

On the days she did care, she was afraid that one day she wouldn’t physically be able to move herself any longer. That something in her brain would crack, the disease spreading into her nervous system, cutting her nerves with sharp knives of paralysis and catatonia. Sen believed this was another reason, why she had been on the battlefield. It’s one thing to be disgusted by the person you see in the mirror, and fear is another. She had tried to flee the lethargy, had wanted to feel anything at all, wanted to feel control, feel pain and labour. To feel death. Sen only felt alive, when her life was on the edge. When there was a mission to be done. When there was a goal, a clear line to walk. Then she functioned. But as soon as the mission was completed, as she was supposed to perform some _routine_ , she was pushed over the brink.

Perhaps, Orochimaru was right about she wanting to proof herself. Perhaps, she had tried to wake herself up. To shake off the darkness and despair of her mind.

Sen didn’t know how much time had passed. There was a knocking on her front door and she did have an assumption about who it was. She pulled herself up from the couch, set the blankets aside – she didn’t recognize she’d been wrapped in them – and walked over to the door. She looked through the spyhole to assure, she had been right. Sen closed her eyes, sighed, straightened herself. Then she opened the door.

“I’ve already answered all of your questions.”

Sometimes, Sen really wanted to smash these silly, ridiculous masks in. They weren’t intimidating, they just were foolish.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, Katsura-san. The order comes from Danzo-sama himself.”

She huffed. “The reason for Konoha-spies to not be participated into ANBU is to not be inconvenienced by this silly administrative machinery.”

“As long as you’re the reason for this investigation, I’m afraid you’ll have to be obedient.”

“It has been two weeks now. Two weeks since the interrogation and my rehabilitation. One of the Sannin stood bail for me. It would seem that someone else isn’t doing their job.”

“Are you refusing to cooperate?”

“No.”, Sen slipped in her shoes, smiling at the little bastard in front of her. She knew this whole emotion-supressing-nonsense didn’t work as well as the leadership anticipated, otherwise they wouldn’t need these masks. It wasn’t about disguising their identity. She could recognise the voice, she knew the stature, posture and his movements as he turned to lead her. The Uchiha was still wet behind his ears and the tension in his shoulders and in his hands revealed to her that he was very uncomfortable with the situation.

Sen didn’t resist any more. In fact, she thought this could’ve turned out to be interesting.

She was familiar with the ANBU quarters from former interrogations following high ranked missions in the past. It had quite it’s advantages to operate as a spy outside of ANBU, but the constant suspicion couldn’t be denied, especially on the part of the special force. But in all these years investigating on her own, gathering sensible information, shadowing and assassinating, she would’ve never had to speak with Shimura Danzo.

“Katsura-san. It’s pleasing that you were able to find some time.”

Sen laid one knee above the other, leaned back slightly in the cold metal chair and gazed at the man on the other side of the metal table, studying his broad, rutted face in the cold lamplight. “How could I resist such a nice invitation, Shimura-san.”

She had felt nervous, then she’d entered the room. But in the very moment she took the seat and her opposite initialised the questioning, everything changed.

“We should get over this quickly. There are just a few questions left unanswered from your last visit.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Very well.” He forced a slight, gentle smile on his lips, while his hands turned the pages in the folder in front of him. Sen knew from experience that most of these sheets were filled with nonsense, the only purpose to unnerve the questionee with a file, that was supposed to look thick. She knew her role and she knew his. There were no doubts about what to do and what to say. “Katsura-san, as I take it from the transcript, you’re able to remember by now how you completed your last mission, but still there’s uncertainty about how you got injured. Might you recount how you got in the battle, please?”

“As I already said, I had been able to get the concrete line-up of Suna’s troops. Then I learnt that Konoha was already about to start the attack, I tried to reach the leadership in time to deliver the information as soon as possible. I still can’t remember everything, but it seems that I didn’t reach our troops in time. I might’ve gotten caught up on the borders of the battlefield, as I tried to slip past.”

“Well, Katsura-san, that sounds plausible. But, I wonder. If it is true what you’re saying, and never would I insinuate any different, how is it possible, that the Sannin found you in the very centre of the battlegrounds after fighting was over?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea, Shimura-san.”

“Mhm. No idea, at all?”

“Well. If you want me to speculate…”

“By all means.”

“…I have never fought in a battle of this magnitude before. But I can imagine, that it’s hardly like you’re able to stay continuously on the same position, particularly if someone’s not standing in formation. And as far as I was informed afterwards, formations had collapsed just minutes after the battle began. Are we done now?”

“You’re aware, that we’re on the same side – are we, Katsura-San?”

She raised her brows. “Do my answers unnerve you, Shimura-san?”

“Well, they seem a little too smooth, too cagey – rehearsed.”

“You expected a confused woman who no longer understands who she is and what happened to her; instead you find the _kunoichi_ spy you thought as being lost for any further mission. You’re mistrustful. I understand that.”

He hummed slightly amused, but didn’t let any of his thoughts slip threw his mimic. “May we talk about your fast recovery, then?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“In just a few days, you recovered from a state where you didn’t even remember your name to”, Danzo took a sheet from the folder, reading a few lines aloud, “to ‘properly remembering her identity and the events of the past months. There’s no evidence, Katsura Sen isn’t what she insists to be: a _shinobi_ of Konoha.’” Danzo set the sheet aside. “Fast recovery.”

“If you’re implying anything here, you’re also suspecting Orochimaru from the Sannin would’ve been part of it.”

“Should I?”

She had done her job very well so far. But now the mask got a crack. She had refused to show any emotions like he did, blandly, without a hint of what’s going on behind their eyes. But now she couldn’t resist any longer to hide her rage. She didn’t want to. Sen elevated one of her legs and rammed her foot against the table. The heavy desk slipped just a few centimetres, but it took Danzo by surprise. His papers shifted under his hands as he searched for hold on the tabletop.

She glared at him, fury in her eyes. “Are we done?”

He allowed himself a fine, disgusting smile then he examined her. “I’m still wondering where your loyalties lie.”

“Danzo.”

He raised his eyebrows by her sudden change in voice.

“Let’s stop this game, however entertaining it may be. What do you want from me?”

With a slight smile Danzo moved the sheets in order and closed the folder in front of him. He interlaced his fingers and sustained his hands on the papers. “I want you to join ANBU-ne.”

Sen blinked. “Thank you for the offer, but no.”

“Maybe you want to consider it.”

“No.”

He leaned back in his chair, not longer disguising his irritation about Sen’s answers. “I can imagine it must be a very tough job to do with no possibilities for backup and the knowledge, that no one will come after you if a mission is failing. You really don’t see the advantages of a group to back you up?”

“I see it. But I prefer being on my own. Are we done here?”

“Yes, Katsura-san, we’re done. I’ll give the Hokage my valuation that you’re ready to go back for operation again.”

Sen rose from her chair and headed for the door. “Katsura-san” She turned around, stared at the _hitae ate_ he held in his hand, waving towards her. “Don’t forget this.” She took it, looked at the leaf symbol engraved in the metal plate. Sen wrapped the cloth around her left upper arm, attached it with her right hand, without thinking, without hesitating, only relying on her muscle memory. She met his eyes one last time, before she turned to leave.

“Don’t think, we’re done, Sen.”

 

* * *

 

It became a habit of hers to linger at his place. He didn’t mind. She just was a shadow, dwelling in the dark corners of his perception. Sometimes the only evidence for her presence was the used teacup in the sink. Sen would come around after missions, when ongoing reporting and documentation had drained her to exhaustion, not to talk, she never talked, only to leave her own four walls, entombing her spirit and flesh with turmoil and unrest. She would go out for a walk, to set her mind free, didn’t matter if it was raining or snowing, finally standing in front of his veranda door. Sen always found her way to his house, even if she didn’t intend to. She would stay for a few hours and then leave again. Seldomly, she would sleep here, curled up on the sofa, avoiding the guest room, the place of her catharsis she never wanted to see again. Orochimaru didn’t mind her.

Sometimes her presence was harder to ignore. Sometimes she was spoiling for a fight, fiery and short-tempered, and for whatever reason it would be him to carry the can for it.

But sometimes, she just needed some help. Even though she didn’t realise it.

He was surprised to find her still in his house. When he walked in the _genkan_ he nearly tripped over her shoes, and in one of his chairs laid her _biwa,_ still where she left it as she got into the bathroom when he left. He walked to the door and knocked against it.

“Did you drown?”

“No.”

“I come in, then.”

Orochimaru didn’t wait for a response or protest. He opened the door and cocked is head as he looked down on her in the bathtub. Sen didn’t bother to open her eyes. Her arms laid on the rim, head back in her neck, sunk down till her chin touched the water. “You’re so embarrassing.”

He huffed. “You know I don’t care.” He moved to the sink to wash his face, to clean himself from sweat and dirt, pulling his _hitai ate_ down to his neck.

“How do you know that I know?”

Her voice was quiet, but curious. At least that. Orochimaru stroked his hair back from his face as he turned to Sen. “You’re the expert in human nature. I would be pretty disappointed if you haven’t noticed yet.”

It was her turn to snort, eyes still closed, not moving. He sighed, approached her and crouched down on her side. She eventually opened her eyes as his hand dived in the water. “What are you doing?”

“Sen. The water’s already cold.”

“So?”

“You come out. Now.”

She closed her eyes again, murmured silently. “Please. Just leave me.”

He moved to take a towel, “no, stop it, _please_ ”, bended down and dived his hand in the water again, searched for and found the drain stopper. He pulled it out.

Sen’s sigh turned into a deep and threatening growl. A sound that probably required all her body’s strength.

“Come up, now.” He gave her an impatient hint with his hand. “Sen, _now._ ”

She gazed at him, and in her eyes was nearly killing intent. Of course, he knew better. By now he had become quiet familiar with her deep exhaustion, her catatonic states and he knew that he wasn’t able to pull her out of them. He just _assisted_ , so she didn’t kill herself accidently. Preferably not in his house.

Sen finally gave in and moved, so slowly one of Tsunade’s slugs would have been impressed. He waited patiently for her lethargic body to rise, while he looked out of the window politely and spread the towel to wrap her up. Her skin felt chilly, and he quickly embraced her body, as she was too weak to keep herself upright. He helped her out of the tube, lifted her way-too-light body and was mildly alarmed that she didn’t protest.

“Where are your clothes, Sen?”

“Somewhere on the floor, I think.”

“Well, then.” He sat her gently on a stool. “Dry yourself and get dressed. I’ll put the kettle on.”

He left her alone in cheerful spirits that she would get along by herself now. This hadn’t nearly been their first dance.

While he prepared the tea in the kitchen, he could hear her rummaging around in the bath. Orochimaru found her symptoms fascinating. She never did seem that paralyzed during missions, not even while she’d prepared for one or when she just got back. It appeared only in the interims, accursed intermezzos of ordinary life she didn’t care for. They both tried to make things more interesting for each other when they were locked up behind the village’s borders, waiting impatiently for the next call. Sometimes the only thing they could do was holding up company, the only company they both could actually bear long enough before getting unnerved of the other’s presence. Orochimaru appreciated his teammates, in a very peculiar state he even _loved_ the two, if not necessarily in the way other people would use this word. But they were so terrible stressful. And Sen was almost silent, quiet company, thoughtfully and calm, with a sense for tea and profound conversation. If in return he had to take care of her when the disease did have her in its awful clutch, so be it.

He took the tray in the living room, then Sen climbed on the couch, dressed in trousers and sweater, her hair still wet on her shoulders, making herself comfortable. Orochimaru smirked. It was fascinating how her entire attitude could change from the powerful and erotic woman, seducing others only with her eyes, killing her enemy without hesitating, into that dégagé bundle on his sofa.

“Better?” He handed her a cup as he sat down in his chair, while Sen took hold of the pot to pour tea in their cups.

“Better.” She took a sip. A quiet purr escaped her throat. “Much better.”

“When is your next mission, Sen?”

“Not until Monday next week.”

“Nothing to prepare?”

“Already done. What about you?”

He shrugged slightly, leaned back in his chair, balancing the saucer gently between his fingers. “Old men are still talking. What’s your assignment about?”

“To make sure our old man has more to talk about than the others.”

Orochimaru chuckled softly. That was actually more detailed than anything Sen did usually say about her missions. “No chance you could provoke some new fights?”

Sen laughed quietly, narrowing her eyes in amusement. “So needy?”

“You have no idea.” She laughed again, a bit more cheerful this time, and he set cup and saucer down on his legs, sighing. “Would you mind playing for me?”

“Anything in particular?”

“No. Just what’s on your mind.”

Sen put her cup on the table, before she reached for the _biwa_ , stroking the strings with her fingernails, teasing some tunes to find the right melody. And as she began to play, Orochimaru closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Sen opened her eyes.

She really was experienced in the art of meditation and chakra-control. It was necessary for her profession, the guidance and mastery of her perception, like her body’s ability of adjustment in any situation, enduring in one and the same position for hours, sometimes days, without water, without food, just in concentration.

But, heavens. This _crow!_

Sen unloosed her body’s tension, relaxed her legs and rose from the floor, where she had sat in silence. She stretched her limps, while watching the bird, which hopped on her window ledge, pecking at the windowpane to catch her attention.

Well done, sweetheart.

Sen moved  s l o w l y  to her desk and opened the window above. The crow – a carrion crow, to be exact – leaped with slightly spread wings on the table surface, making a little mess between her papers.

“So”, Sen said in a cheerful tone, opening a drawer to take the bowl with seeds, she was carrying there. “I take it you’ve some _very_ interesting stuff, as excited as you are.”

The crow cooed in agreement and folded its wings meticulously. “Very interesting stuff, indeed. Curious?”

“How could I not be?” Sen dropped a few seeds in front of the crow, which started eagerly to pick them up. “So?”

The summon looked up at her. “There’s a new cat at the Yamanaka’s flower shop!”

“You don’t say!”

“Ya! Ya! And Uchiha Mikoto is with child!”

“No way!”

“Krah-ya!  A n d…” The crow fell silent after stressing the last word to make sure, the stupid human in front of it understood, that there was fairly more to tell.

Sen grinned at the corvid. “Go on. There’s plenty more corn left.”

The bird crowed unenthused and shook his feathering. “You’ll have to make a better offer, Sen-sama.”

She sighed spuriously. She had always enjoyed the interactions with her summons greatly. “Well”, Sen turned and bridged the few steps to the fridge to get the plate with prepared pieces of flesh out of it. With an markedly serious look, she walked back to her little friend and put the plate in front of it.

The crow got excited and started to pick at the flesh, teared it to bits with its sharp pecker, while taking hold of it with its claws. Sen set down on her desk chair, leaned onto her elbows and rested her chin on her folded hands. “And?”

“Katou Dan is dead.”

Sen’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

“Krah-ya! Killed in combat.”

She felt a throbbing rising in her temples. Her mouth went dry. “How is Senju Tsunade doing?”

“The slug-princess is mourning, of course.”

The crow continued its meal, while Sen’s gaze wandered out of the window, lost in thought. Sometimes she really wondered why she was doing this job. Why go out and risk her life for knowledge to be used against others, only to lose more soldiers on the own side. Like it wouldn’t matter. Indifferent, no matter what she was doing, who she assassinated and which information she caught.

“What’s the matter, Sen? Did you know Katou Dan?”

Sen looked down on the bird, who stopped its meal to cast a curious glance at her. She shook her head. “No. It’s alright. I’m just…”

Sen wasn’t close enough to Tsunade to be of any use for here. She knew her only through Orochimaru. And now as even Jiraiya wasn’t here, staid in Ame to train orphans of the war, it was left to Orochimaru to comfort her.

“But something is bothering you!”, the corvid demanded, footed towards her.

“Life isn’t fair, Cora. That’s all.”

She reached out with her fingers to stroke gently over the bird’s beak, slid softly over dead black feathers.

“Nothing’s fair, Sen-sama.”

She sighed. “I know.”

She remembered that one evening. Late, nearly midnight, light in his house, she entered, welcomed with the request to bring Tsunade upstairs in the guestroom, while himself dealt with Jiraiya, who passed out on the couch. She remembered the smell of sake, the quiet giggle from Tsunade, who sustained herself on Sen’s shoulder. She remembered the expression on Orochimaru’s face when she came down the stairs and watched him spreading a blanket above his sleeping teammate, a glass of water and a headache pill next to him on the coffee table. He always cared, even if he didn’t show it. He lost his parents, all what was left of his family. His team became something of the sort, his _sensei_ a father figure. But Sarutobi Hiruzen was the Hokage. And Senju Tsunade was about to set up a separate family. Sen didn’t know if they were aware of how much Orochimaru missed Jiraiya. How much he worried about the idiot. She only knew he would be there for Tsunade, as he was were for her – but would it suffice?

It wasn’t fair.

Something alarmed her. It came across her mind unexpected. It electrified her. “This is really interesting information, my little darling. I wonder, if you and your friends could do me a special favour.”

“What kind of special favour?”

“Could you keep an eye on a particular person? Do you know Shimura Danzo?”

“Ugly, busy guy, running through the village like a rooster in his stable.”

She laughed. “That’s exactly the guy we’re talking about.”

“What do you offer?” The crow cocked its head.

“A pound of lamb. Fresh and tender, soft as butter. Deal?”

“Krah, deal, krah!”

She watched the bird leaving, spreading its wings to fly out of the window. Sen pulled the plate outside on the windowsill for all the other crows and ravens sharing their information with her summons, passing by her window time and time.

She couldn’t say exactly why. But Sen had a feeling, someone should have an eye on Danzo. She had learned to trust her intuition. And as it seemed that person having an eye on him would be on her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes explicit description of sex. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, just concentrate on the dialogue-scenes. It should be easy to skip.

Her pen scratched above blank paperwhite. Melting dark ink into untouched emptiness, depleting her mind on the pages of her journal. Date. Weather. Mission assignment. Occurrences. Result. Distracting her mind. Carring away.

There was a knock on her door.

Sen stopped writing, blinked and laid the pen down on her journal. She stood up from her desk, viewing down on her papers again, before she went through her room to the flat door. Sen didn’t look through the spyhole as she answered the door, didn’t even hesitate, not a glimpse, before she opened it to meet Orochimaru’s stunned, nearly angry gaze.

“What kind of spy are you to not even check before opening the bloody door, Katsura?”

“A spy on a day off.”, she answered upfront, turned to walk back and left the door open for him to enter and close it.

He walked in and left his shoes in the _genkan,_ took off the vest of his uniform and hooked it up at the entrance, finally pulling off his _hitai ate_ to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Orochimaru watched her, while he took the few steps up to the couch. She had returned to her desk and closed the book.

“It’s unusual for you to come by. If I had known, I’d have made some tea.”

“No need for excuses. It’s my fault for surprising you.” Orochimaru watched her as she walked to the kitchen range and prepared the kettle. She wore one of her shift dresses. On a day without mission, without intention to find a certain kind of company, he knew she wore it only because it was so easy to dress and undress. Simply pulling it over the head and smoothing it down. That might’ve been an indicator that today wasn’t a good day. However, she wasn’t catatonic, and in her movements was nothing to be found this deadly lethargy, which made him always shudder to watch her in this state.

The snake summoner looked at her back, the small curves of her body. The dress didn’t fit appropriately. It was a bit too wide, the cloth fell a bit loose above her body. He wondered if she had starved herself, when she was younger. It might fit to the other symptoms he had gathered by watching her.

Sen took a pomegranate from a bowl and began to carve it. Orochimaru watched her as she pushed the knife through the red skin of the fruit. “I take it that you’re going to tell me what’s on your mind, when you’re ready.”

“I’m not quite sure if I should bother you with that today.”

He heard her chuckle, her slim shoulders shaking slightly. “Don’t mind, Orochimaru. I can bear it.”

Beside her words he was hesitating. Sen was a strange creature, lovely and deadly. A delicate butterfly with wings like sharp razors. Caressing tenderness, but one touch able to cut deep and open flesh, to kill in an instant. Sen was – intoxicating.

Her fragile state of sanity and health belied easily to what she was able to do. As years past by he had seen her on missions. She wasn’t the fighter and soldier Jiraiya was, not this wild strength embodied in Tsunade and neither was she a genuine talent with jutsus as he was. What she was capable of doing was entirely sufficient. Her summonings suited her preferences perfectly, a flight of crows, just such little assholes as she was, her genjutsus were efficient to trick her enemy and in combat she was able to use her opponent’s strength to her advantage. She was a master in lying and cheating, could make you believe everything she wanted to, every role she ever could’ve imagined, _she_ was able to play it.

And once the mission was over, the information was procured, the target assassinated, once she was at home, Sen was a broken woman.

Orochimaru felt the desire to watch her carving the fruit in her hands and rose from his seat to walk over to her. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as he leaned against the kitchen range to observe her. Crimson juice unavoidably stained her fingers, as she cut the fruit open. With the tip of the knife she flayed the white skin covering the pomegranate’s chambers – like heart chambers.

Orochimaru had always liked how similar the fruit was to the human heart. He imagined it in her hands, while she broke the chambers with a wet noise, pulling the small ruby-like fruit pieces from the inside out as she dented the fruit’s shell, before removing them from the hard skin into a bowl. The juice dropped from her fingertips. She was concentrated, even contemplative. He knew she needed such things to distract her, playing the _biwa_ or documenting her last missions in a very concentrated state; this gave her some security allowing her to feel save and steady.

Sen slided the bowl to him, inviting him in silence to enjoy the fruit’s heart pieces which she so carefully educed from the pomegranate’s inside.

He took the invitation, tasted the sweet, brisk flavour on his tongue while watching her as Sen took the last chamber and buried her teeth into the red flesh and sucked it dry.

Sen licked over her lips, started to clean up her fingers, as Orochimaru’s hand suddenly grabbed her wrist.

Her eyes met his gaze, searched his serpent-eyes to understand that look she never knew from him. Not for her.

Orochimaru raised her hand, took her bloody red forefinger and released his tongue from his mouth to lick her fingertip. Sen stared in his eyes, felt confusion, too bewildered to react _,_ just watched him carefully, while he closed his lips around her finger and _sucked._

Sen escaped a hiss, breathed in the air deeply between her teeth, as his tongue huddled against her finger, wreathed around it in a way only his tongue could manage and licked, very thoroughly, the liquid from her skin, while his glance never let hers escape, hypnotised by these eyes.

She didn’t want to think about it. Perhaps on another day she would’ve shoved him away for the better of their relationship. But today was today, and today she was able to move herself. To think clearly, or as clear as it was possible, because it had been years since she could think without that thick, tiered fog covering everything in her mind, no longer able to remember how it felt to feel and think in absolute lucidity. At this moment she was clear enough to realize that her body was reacting to his touch. She felt a shiver inside her flesh, warmth in her stomach, a moan growing in her throat, and she cut it down, watched him sucking her finger in a way, she hadn’t believed a man would do so for a woman.

She decided to give it a chance.

Sen pulled her finger out of his mouth, stroked slightly across his warm, small lips, and now it was her turn to take his hand, to lead his finger to her mouth, to enclose it with her lips. Her glaze laid in his. Then she bit down on his finger, breaking skin and flesh.

He gasped, but didn’t pull back, he stared at her, watching her, as she licked the blood from him. He couldn’t resist. Slowly he moved his finger between her lips, and still she didn’t stop him. Orochimaru closed the gap between them, laid his other hand on her cheek, stroking back her wild, messy hair, drawing nearer and pressing his body gently against hers, let her feel his warm closeness – and she didn’t stop him. Sen released his finger and took his face in her hands, fondled her fingers across his pale, immaculate skin to his silky hair, in which she buried them, while guiding him into her kiss.

Somehow, he had mesmerized her soul; she felt a desire for him she hadn’t felt in a very long time for any man, but despite his effect on her _he_ gave in into her guidance. She tasted his lips and was marvelled that his kiss wasn’t the hungry, demanding greed she had expected, rather a sweet temptation, ravished rapture, a symphony on her tongue, played by his, exploring her mouth and caressing her in a way with his long, snake-like tongue that made her dizzy. A noise of pure delight escaped her and breathed against his tongue, while his fingers danced down on her back and rested his hands on her small waist. He purred against her mouth, withdrew his tongue out of her to take care of her lips, which he caressed with gentle bits, sucked tenderly on them, buried his fingers in the fabric of her dress, pressed himself stronger against her body, against her bosom.

Sen felt his arousal and laid back her head, bared her neck for him to guide his lips down on her, to bite her soft skin, to scratch her with his fang-like teeth. Her hand reached for the stove to disable it, as she heard the first quiet whistle of the kettle. A deep, sanguine laugh escaped her, and Orochimaru undid his lips from her throat, to capture her gaze.

“I don’t hope you’re sneering at me, my dear.”

“No.”, she chuckled and breathed a kiss against his left eye’s violet mark. “That’s on me. I should know better than to get myself into this.”

“Because you don’t trust my ability to prevent things from getting complicated. Or because I am a man?” He smirked at her wicked and cruelly, stroked some of her strands of hair behind her ears, while he held her with his other arm around her waist, refusing to let her go. “What is it about you and your contempt for men?”

“The utterly ignorance for female anatomy.”

That came unexpected. He laughed heartily, closed his eyes as he gently reclined his head to give his amusement room. “Oh, Sen.” He couldn’t blame her. Of course this wasn’t the only reason, though quite _one_ reason nonetheless. “Be up for testing me?” She looked in his mischievous radiant eyes, the sheer malignity in this smirk, that drove shivers through her flesh, deep inside her bones. Instead of an answer she kissed him again, enclosed his bottom lip with hers to suck on it, sweeping her teeth against it, scratching with her nails across the fabric of his shirt to surmise the structure of his chest beneath.

He pulled her closer and lifted her in his embrace to carry her over to the couch, laid her gently down and slid on top of her. Sens fingers weaved through his hair, playing with the long, silky wisps of molten obsidian, made a grab at his lips, he refused, lifted his head to escape her and felt her mouth on his neck instead. Orochimaru chuckled softly under the demanding kiss on his skin, he loved her dominance, even when she laid under him. Sen wasn’t the kind of woman to give herself up easily, to lose herself in one other’s embrace, regardless of whether her partner was male or female. She claimed control, seized it whenever the opportunity arose. The weight of his body felt pleasant to the touch, cosy, she felt safe and comfortable, without giving herself up to him.

Sen grabbed his chin and coaxed him to decline his head again, to devote his lips to her, feeling her tongue intruding his mouth to search for his, and he yielded, let himself be guided by her kiss and her touch, let his tongue dance to the rhythm she dictated. He was intoxicated by her, she was so warm, so tempting warm and smooth, she lured him into her touch like the snake was lured by the sun. She sighed with pleasure, her fingers dancing across his face’s skin, while his legs gently pressed apart her naked knees to slide in between them.

Sen pressed her knees against his hips, moaned under her breath as she felt his arousal against her. It excited her, and she thought, it wouldn’t do any harm to accelerate the pace, which he was following so obediently.

Her fingers caught his belt and undid it, before she let her hand glide inside. She tasted his moan on her tongue, her fingers exploring his hardness, giving him the permission to go further, as his hands began to palpate her body more thoroughly. He cupped her breasts, squeezed them gently, ran down his fingers to the seam of her dress, touching the naked skin of her thigh and slithered his fingers beneath the cloth.

She tucked up her leg and pushed her foot against his chest, pulling him back from her. He detached from her, going on his knees to look down at her in soft confusion, questioning, while his hand stroked up her leg to her foot against his chest.

“Undress.”

He snorted, but obeyed. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head, denuded his upper body’s mesomorphic frame. “For someone lethargic like you, you’re quite demanding.”

She laughed under her breath, caressing his skin with her toes, sliding them over his well-built abs, at last clawing them into the waistband to drag on it. “You’ve got me wrong. I just let you do the work.”

She watched him attentively, admired the view, as he doffed his trousers, throwing them on the floor to the rest of his clothes, before he got rid of the last remaining piece of cloth. Sen sat up, closed her fingers around her dress’ seam and pulled it over her head, threw it down to Orochimaru’s clothes, before snuggling her lips against his abdominals, tracing the lines of them with the tip of her tongue. Her hands grasped his bottom, let him breathe in enjoyment, while his fingers searched for her bra’s fastener, undoing it from her and stroking over her breasts. She laid back down, raising her hips to allow his hands to drag the briefs down her legs.

Then, once more, his hands took advantage of her thighs, pulling Sen on her back closer to press himself gently against her entrance. She purred in pleasure, tilted her head back and closed her eyes to enjoy the sensation of his member against her wet, sensitive skin. Her hand raised up and embraced his throat, guiding him down, pushing against his shoulders and forcing him on his back, bringing herself on top of him. His hands clasped her waist, stroked one of them down in his lap to adjust his hard lust, assisting her as she touched it gently to guide it further.

Her breathe ran deep through her as she felt the tip of his sex against her and slowly she let him in, felt the pressure of his lap he gently pulling up against her, felt the very tightness of her, remembering it had been a while for her since she last allowed a man to invade her. He sank in her warm, moist flesh, the tight walls pressing against him, widened under the pressure of his hardness, soaking deep into her.

Her sighing unified with his as she pulled back, lifted her hips and let him slid in again, moved her hips over his lap in a calm pace, getting accustomed to the sense of him inside her. Sen gradually increased the pace, searched for the right rhythm, and as he was sure she enjoyed it, didn’t struggle with the sensation of being fulfilled by him, he finally thrusted up in her womb. Sen gasped, stabilized herself on him, crawled her fingernails in his stomach’s skin, moaning in pleasure as she met his movements. She was rocked by his thrusts, heard his rapid breathing, the groan leaking his lips, elicited by her whenever she pressed her hips so hard against his, allowing him to advance deep in her warmth. His hands trembled while he touched her skinny, sleek body, he caught his breath as she rode him, adjusted his thrusts to her motions.

Orochimaru sat up, hold her on his lap, captured her gaze, her deep and wild eyes, not afraid to meet his, shuddered as he saw her lust burning in them, felt her hands on his face, forcing him in her kiss. Once more he gave in, embraced her body and slithered his tongue in her mouth, kissing her passionately and hungrily, while he thrusted up in her, harder and faster as she buried her fingers in his hair, clinging onto him and his shoulders. Breathless he had to break the kiss, snatched at her lips, she threw her head aside to avoid him teasingly, and he pressed his forehead against her shoulder. His fingers stroked down to touch her clitoris, stroked it till he found, guided by her noises, the pressure pleasuring her most and kneaded it in a steady pace.

Orochimaru hissed and gasped as he couldn’t resist any longer, though he didn’t have to. His fingers plucking the strings of her flesh, her body’s sound resonating within her bones, prying the last remained hold away from her grip, altogether with his angry thrusts in her inside brought her over the edge. Sen moaned, wanted to put her head back, but his hand didn’t allow her, caught her chin and forced her eyes to meet his gaze, leering at her, heavy with desire, with hunger and with greed. She stared in his threatening eyes, down on his very soul, and it scared and thrilled her, she saw the raw lust in him, the craving for her, felt it inside her body, this irresistible avidity, breaking away over her consciousness, like cold, untameable water hitting the shore.

Sen collapsed above him, searching for hold on his shoulders, clutching onto him, and he didn’t let go of her, while she could feel him inside her pulse and throb, pouring himself into her.

Their laborious breathing fulfilled the air of Sen’s tiny flat, their eyes tired, skin hot and sweaty. Sen stroked a wisp of silken, smooth hair from his face, felt his fingers breezing across her skin. Slowly she lifted herself from his lap, let him slide out of her while he fell on his back with a deep sigh, still savouring his satisfaction’s sweet surges, as Sen started to attempt to leave the couch. She didn’t get very far.

Sen felt his hand at her wrist, glanced back at him to meet the greedy look of his eyes, a venomous smirk on his lips. “Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was hoarse and heavy with lust, he pulled her back, caught her in his arms, and she felt herself smirking, allowing herself to let go of the attempt to head for the bathroom. She snuggled into his arms, all of a sudden not longer caring to keep control. Sen trusted him. And Orochimaru realized that she was willing to let herself go, loose herself in the pleasure he offered her. Orochimaru was a greedy and selfish man, nothing Sen wasn’t aware of, so her yielding suffused him with craving and self-confidence.

Gently, though firmly, he pressed her down on the sofa, shifting himself above her. Orochimaru caught her lips, not allowing her to withdraw again, pulled her down with his body’s weight. Sen pressed her knees against his hips, let him between her legs and once more allowed him to melt into her. She moaned by the pressure of his member, digged her fingers in his shoulder’s soft skin as he began to thrust into her. He understood her body language, minded every stirring of her and knew to read it. He moved only further inside when her inner walls eased under his movements, didn’t demand more from her body as she was able to bear. She enjoyed him and his passion, breathed heavily under his demanding thrusts, returned his kisses, the play of his tongue ensnaring hers, claiming her mouth and her tender lips he licked and bit thirstily.

Sen hadn’t thought she would get so easily sore with him, but his size was challenging for her, considering her sexual preferences. She couldn’t say if he was reading her body’s signals to a nicety, the slight tension growing in her flesh as yet sweet pain consorted with her lust, or if he already had something else in mind, as he moved out of her. The noise which rolled over her tongue was somewhere between a grumble and a moan, feeling relief and emptiness all at the same time. Her look searched for his, before his fingers gently laid down on her lids, commanding Sen to keep her eyes closed, as his lips began to travel downwards her chin, caressing her neck and throat, sliding down over her breasts his fingers and tongue explored lascivious.

A deep, lustful moan slipped out of her mouth, sensing his path down her body, tension in every part of her muscles his tongue glided over. She was too experienced not to know what was going to happen. A thrill of anticipation trembled her whole body, and then she felt his hand against her thigh, she already lifted it up to rest her knee on his shoulder. Sen groaned in pure pleasure as his tongue slid over her clitoris, found his way down to her femininity and entered her again.

Gasping she moved her hips forward, stopped by his hands, not allowing her to guide this time, as he shifted his tongue deeper and _deeper_ in her womb, wreathing inside her, licking at her inner walls, searching for her most sensitive spots and _finding_ them. He made her whimper and purr, moan and even laugh in her delight, while his fingers took care of her outer parts, like if he had something to demonstrate, belie her on her opinion about men’s knowledge of the female anatomy. He made her come again, she screamed out her lustfulness this time, felt his wet, smooth tongue licking deep inside her, retracting it slowly to let her ride down her orgasm.

Sen opened her eyes to look at him, rested on her elbow, watched the predatory smirk on his lips, which he was licking with his long tongue, leisurely coming up from between her legs.

“Delicate taste, my dear.”

“Shut up.”

Her voice was only a rough whisper, negated the effect of her words, which made him only chuckle in wicked amusement. Sen came his way, placed her hands on his shoulders, before he could make himself comfortable on her again, to change positions with him again, grinning at him with a lascivious expression in her eyes.

“Let me return the favour.”

He smirked, gave in and laid down on his back, hadn’t expect her to do so, but he would certainly not complain or even stop her. Orochimaru closed his eyes and moaned in pleasure as Sen closed her lips around the tip of his manhood, sucking on it before taking it deeper in her mouth. Her lips kneaded with lecherous pressure over his shaft, her tongue seducing him in a way too marvellously to let him gather a single shred of sanity. She sucked at him like he was some sort of delicacy, stroked the lower part of his shaft she couldn’t take in her mouth, kneaded his testes, drove him over the edge and he climaxed before he was even aware of it, as if she tore the orgasm out of him, _sucked_ it out of his member, and through the thick fog of his pleasure and lust he sensed that she wasn’t pulling back. She drank his lust, just let him slowly come down from his peak, licking above his still pulsing tip before she released him.

Orochimaru reached out to touch her hair, her smooth skin, looked at her through lustveiled eyes, pulled her in his embrace to catch her lips, didn’t mind tasting himself on her tongue, which he ensnared with his one last time.

“Still disbelieving of my capabilities?” His voice was quiet, just a whisper, as he smirked down on her, let her touch his lips with soft fingers, her eyes considering them with care.

“You’re the one-to-one hundred-exception.”

He chuckled under his breath, watched her carefully. The expression on her face changed, this delightful mixture of lust and satisfaction vanished in order to the calm, serene expression he was used to.

Sen rose and stepped over their clothes, directed to the bathroom. It was strange. Usually she would go now, would leave whoever she shared her delectation with. That’s probably the reason why never anything was happening in _her_ flat. She had to suppress the impulse to elope. Instead, she vanished into the bathroom, to wash herself, grabbed a pack of tissues to threw them in his direction. He caught it.

Afterwards, she was afraid that he could do something awkward like _talking about it_ or some other strange bullshit; what was nonsense, because she never thought about him like about most men she ever met. Orochimaru was different, _better_ in some strange sense; he stood above any policies of society, and so he didn’t do what others would expect him to do. He didn’t ask her if everything was all right – because it never ever was and probably never ever would – neither if she enjoyed it or something like that. In this case she would consider him as the perfect gentleman: he didn’t mention the obvious and he didn’t make any attempt to touch her again. He just waited until she left the bathroom to use her shower, while Sen collected her clothes from the floor and redressed herself. She put his clothes on the couch, before she decided, that _now_ some tea would be perfect to ask him the question she had wanted an answer since he stood in front of her door.

“You remember that last mission I couldn’t speak about?” She casted a gaze over her shoulder as he left the bathroom and reached for his clothes.

“Well”, he mused in a slightly sarcastic note, “I really can’t remember any mission you actually _did_ speak about.”

She gave him a cool glance, before she continued preparing the tea. “Whatever. I had been in Tea Country and seized the opportunity looking for new sorts. In case you like them, I’ve brought plenty enough to share.”

He gifted her a grin and, once dressed, set down on her couch. His effrontery with the whole situation was so liberating and marvellous, she could already forget what just happened. “That’s very obliging of you.”

She took the tea strainer out of the pot, placed it along with two cups, a slice of lemon and the bowl with pomegranate on a tray, before carrying it to the coffee table. She kneeled in front of it and sat it on the table, making herself comfortable cross-legged on the floor. “Well, then.” She didn’t look up at him, while she poured the tea in the cups. “Why are you here?”

Orochimaru sighed and leaned against the backrest of the couch. “Danzo approached me.”

“Why?” She handed the cup to him, for that he reached with his hand, fingertips smoothly touching.

“To join ANBU-ne.”

“I’d like to think you rejected.” He didn’t answer. She squashed the lemon over her tea, raising her eyes up to him, eventually. “You didn’t, did you?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

She sighed in desperation. “So, you’re considering it.”

“And as my next question is going to be ‘why not?’, you now know why I’m here.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Well”, he chuckled, “tell me something I don’t know.” He reached the cup to his lips, breathed in the odour and sipped at it. “The tea’s delicious.”

“You may take some with you. Where did he approach you?”

“Thanks a lot, my love. He headed me off at the graveyard.”

Sen snarled, twisting the cup between her fingers. “He did it there, because he assumed that you would be weak and vulnerable at your parent’s grave.”

“I presumed that, too.”

“That’s the kind of mind game you’re going to put yourself through, if you’d work for him. So, what kind of offer does he have to let you even consider it?”

He hesitated. “The matter is a bit delicate. It’s – well”

“Spit it out.”

“He offers me any conceivable help in my studies and all the resources I need.”

“In return?” Sen pecked a few pomegranate seeds from the bowl.

“In return, I shall run a few specific experiments for him.” He took another sip of his tea, watching her carefully about the cup’s lip.

“As you already did for the improvement of food pills?”

“Not quite. More genetics this time.”

“Go on.”

He grimaced, twisted his mouth in a failed smirk. “You won’t like it.”

“Well, when you know that _I_ won’t like it, how come, that _you_ do?”

“I’m not saying I’m totally okay with this. I’m just saying that I have to make a decision and for that I want to hear your opinion.”

“Then I’m going to need every detail.”

“As you insist.” He put the cup on the table. Sen froze lightly. It was never a good sign, when he put his tea out of hand. “Stem cell research. Though this time not on prisoners of war, but on foetuses.”

She lifted her brows. “Wow. And how is he able to spin  t h a t  in a context for the village’s sake?”

“Restoring the cells and therewith the abilities of the _Shodai_. The _mokuton._ ”

“Heavens.” Sen sighed deeply. She felt the strong desire to scream. “Did the Hokage give his permission?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Orochimaru!” She caught his gaze, staring at him in disbelieve, while his face stayed calm.

“I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

“Why putting yourself in such a mess? Danzo will let you fall in the moment he can use you to save his neck. You know that!”

“Of course I do.”

She silenced. Sen had to compose herself, to calm down, because this was what Orochimaru did need from her: her calm, unaffected view on things to come. Sen’s fingers trailed over the smooth surface of the coffee table. “Sorry.”

“No need to be. Just…just let us talk as we usually do. No prejudgement. Just facts.”

“All right.” She sipped on her tea. “Give me the facts. Foetuses, you said.”

“For the first stage. Further on more matured test subjects will be needed.”

“You’re talking about kids.”

“Yes. I do.”

She hummed. “Where from?”

Orochimaru shrugged. “Not my part to bother.”

“Ok. Maybe I understand your point. Provided that you’re saying, your research is important enough to sacrifice children’s lives.”

“Sen.”, he huffed, sliding his fingertips on the cup’s lip. “How many children died in the last war? How many will in the next? For nothing. Of no avail. This work of mine would be able to save lives.”

“In all objectivity – ”

“Stop it.” Orochimaru’s eyes gave way up in Sen’s, spearing her with his ophidian gaze. “That’s the whole problem of this village, Sen. Of the world, maybe. This absurd concept of objectivity.” He leaned back again and moved the cup to his lips, kept it lingering there, while his eyes looked across it to her. “Tell me, Sen. You’re an intelligent person: Is something like objectivity even possible?” He guided the cup to his lips and took a sip, while watching her carefully.

Sen was taken aback. She reflected upon his question, but, to her dismay, she knew exactly what he was talking about. “No.” It was part of her life to exploit anyone’s lack of objectivity. And as her thoughts ran around this subject, Orochimaru kept on, expressing exactly what Sen was thinking about:

“Correct. The human’s mentality isn’t capable of being objective. Everything we perceive we’re referring to ourselves. That’s how our brain works. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But that’s the reason we put up rules everyone has to follow in a society. To make sure people go along, and these rules issue objectivity.”

“I disagree.” He declined his head, watching her curiously. “These rules, you’re mentioning, are made by humans with her own subjective view on the world. We live along the subjectivity of others, to make sure, nonothers’ will care. And these aren’t rules I want to adjust my life for. Do you understand?”

“Maybe. Subjectively is the only way we’re able to see things. In other words: There’s neither good nor evil. Just different opinions, different ways to see the world.”

“Exactly.” He smirked at her.

“So, let us consider just for a moment, it isn’t despicable to murder kids in the name of science, but rather _this_ is the real objective thing, just a dead child, and now we talk about this matter from _your_ state of view.”

“Nothing else I just wanted.”

“How do you justify it? I know you’re fond of children. I’ve seen you training them, your patience – more than I could ever have, that’s for sure –, your attention for them. Let’s ignore for once the thing with the foetuses, but you know exactly it’ll be orphans Danzo is going to bring you. Like you and me. I remember, you told me about this young medic, who patched you up after battle…?”

“Kabuto.”

“Yes, this little guy! Imagine it would be him.”

Orochimaru thought about her words, looking down at his hands holding the teacup. He smiled softly. “If it would be him, then he would be lucky it’s me and not someone else wo doesn’t care for him. So at least, I could make a decision. Outside the project I could do nothing for talents like him.”

Sen recognised that, if she wanted to allure Orochimaru away from this whole shit, she was going in the false direction. “Just the talented ones, hm?”

“Sen-chan”, he sighed. “Do you share my opinion about another war to come?”

“I do.”

“I think both of us do exactly know, who it will be to fight this war.”

He didn’t have to explain. Probably, Sen was one of the few people in Konoha who knew the exact numbers of dead shinobi the last war demanded. The next war, she was certain, would be fought on the backs of child soldiers. “You think of it a mercy.”

“At least I would narcotize them.”

 _And not dismember their bodies while they were conscious_. They did have seen too much, she thought. She really wasn’t in the position to judge him. Until now Konoha always benefited from Orochimaru’s studies. And she had killed children before. On command. Konoha’s command.

“Very well, Orochimaru. I think, the one thing troubling me is your dependency on Shimura Danzo.” She earnestly glared at him, not letting his anguine eyes out of hers. “You have to take preparations. Be sure to have something against him in hands. Make copies, disallow that he takes advantage of you. You’re a snake about to play with a hawk. Birds of prey  e a t  snakes. Avoid that.”

Orochimaru smiled at Sen, in his usual sly way, but also gratefully. At last, she was able to see it in its entirety. “That’s my girl.”

Sen huffed. “Your girl is going to make herself a nice purse out of your skin, if this goes pear-shaped.”

He chuckled. “So, may you help me avoid such pitiful fate?”

“Have you decided, yet?”

“No. I just want to be sure, you’re still on my side.” With a grin he slid down from the couch next to her to place a gentle kiss on her cheek, warm, small lips brushing her smooth skin, not in the least sensual, but amicable.

She rolled her eyes and shoved him away. “Don’t get sentimental.”

He smirked mischievously. “What do you think about of me?”


	7. Chapter 7

“You are inattentive today.”

She watched his fingers, hovering over the black _go-ishi,_ unsure, the slightest hint of tremor in his fingertips; his moves once careless, then again overcautious. It wasn’t anything she was used to see, when she was playing with Orochimaru.

“My apologies.”

When it was about _go,_ she considered Orochimaru as her student – a delightful and teasing consideration. She heard from him over the years about Sarutobi-sama’s complaining about his sudden improvement and Jiraiya’s supposition, he would be cheating. It amused her. Orochimaru had become a quiet serious opponent, and her win wasn’t any longer taken for granted. But when she watched him now, she didn’t have the impression that Orochimaru was actually seeing the board upon which his gaze laid on.

“The White Fang committed suicide.”

Sen stiffened, astonished.

“Hatake Sakumo?”

Orochimaru did his move and Sen passed her next turn. He nodded slightly.

“Why?”

“Haven’t you heard the wittering?”

“Well, sure. But I didn’t pay attention. The blaming was – nonsense.”

A slight smile spread on Orochimaru’s lips. There was nothing cheerful about it. “That was my thought, too. Now I really wish, I’d have said this to him in person.”

He passed as well and they ended the game. In silence they collected the stones. Sen hadn’t thought Orochimaru to care. So many good _shinobi_ had died and he hadn’t cared this much.

“You knew him?”

“Well.”, he sighed. “I appreciated him. He commanded my respect. I have never thought, he would allow this to get close to him.”

“Neither did I. Another war was going to come regardless of what Hatake did. He just – _accelerated_ things.” She paused, because there was that question on her tongue, someone would always think about, but usually not dare to ask in the matter of suicide. Though, Sen didn’t have to avoid such questions, when she was with Orochimaru. “How did he do it?”

He closed the boxes carefully. “Do you remember our conversation about suicide?”

“Which one?”

He snorted. “The only one we actually ever had in clarity.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

As he did all these years they talked about it before, he stabbed his fingers in the side of his stomach and stroked a line across it. She hummed. No one should ever say that Hatake didn’t manage his affairs thoroughly.

“He had a son, right? How is he doing?”

“Hatake Kakashi was the one who found the body.”

“Holy shit.”

“As you say.”

They sat in silence for a while, nothing to say, just with their own thoughts about it. Finally, it was Sen who rose to her feet. “I have the feeling that tonight, we need something stronger than tea. Do you have something here?”

He glanced thoughtfully in the direction of his kitchen. “I don’t think so. If I did have any saké, I’m quite sure Tsunade already found it, before she left Konoha.”

“Then, let’s go out. Drinks are on me.”

He hesitated. “I’m not in the mood for other company than yours.”

“Just one drink – or two. And maybe a walk to the graveyard. To show our respect.”

He looked up to her. “That doesn’t sound that bad, actually.”

She offered him a hand and he took it, rose to his feet. “Give me a minute.”

It took them little time to leave the house, and they headed for the village’s centre. It was almost dark, the lanterns alight. They visited a teahouse that they both appreciated, ordered one bottle of saké to share and drunk in remembrance of the White Fang. They travelled the way to the graveyard in silence and found the freshly excavated grave easily. Sen took the small bottle and spilled the rest of saké in front of the grave to the earth, while Orochimaru knelt in the grass. He picked a kunai from his pockets, took one of his strands of hair and cut it. He wrapped the hair around the blade and laid it down on the tomb. Sen watched him, didn’t dare to ask. They stood in silence, recalling one of their greatest. Hatake Sakumo would be missed in the war to come, missed by his son and the few people who didn’t care about rules which accepted the loss of comrades.

When Orochimaru rose to his feet, it was time to leave this place. No one of them disturbed the silence, not even when they arrived at his house. Sen helped preparing the tea and set down on her preferred space on the couch. She moulded the tea in their cups, handed him his, but he didn’t drink. He stared into nothingness, and she didn’t urge him.

“We slept together.”

Her eyes rushed upwards, examining him with care. He sat in silence, and Sen started to believe that she had imagined it, still unable to bring herself to push him further. She knew him for years now. He would speak if he was content to do so. And he didn’t disappoint her. “He was lonely.” There again was a pause, a long silence, lingering around them, while he stared down in his tea, watching the steam curling up in the air above the golden fluid. “I might have been, too.”

“I didn’t have a clue. I’m sorry.”

Orochimaru lifted his head, watched her surprised. “No? I thought there isn’t a thing in this village you wouldn’t know about.”

Sen waved her hand. “I told my sweeties not to bother you. And if they would do so anyway, they shouldn’t tell me.”

He looked at her, uninterpretable. “Why?”

“Because you deserve some privacy.”

He huffed quietly. “You would do a bad teammate.”

“Just good I’m not on a team!”

“I’ll drink to that.”

They clinked their teacups and drank, allowed the stillness to return around them. She would stay the night. He wouldn’t offer it and most of all he wouldn’t ask for it. Sen just would stay, uninvited, just this one night, which he shouldn’t stay alone.

 

* * *

 

The third war came unpredictably, as merciless as the wrath of tides.

There hadn’t been any words between them, no difference to any other mission they had prepared for in the past. Just one promise they demanded from each other, before they left to fight:

“Don’t die.”

It wasn’t easy. Of course, war was never easy, but Sen knew it had been easier for her in the last war, because she had been on her own. She hadn’t cared for anyone, just for her missions. Now, she caught herself enquiring about him, especially when missions and circumstances had it, that she met with Jiraiya to exchange information.

“How is he doing?”

Jiraiya grinned. “The bastard is doing great.”

The Sannin weren’t a team anymore. Nonetheless Jiraiya and Orochimaru did care for each other and covered their backs, if possible. In the first years Sen and Orochimaru only did know about each other through Jiraiya, who met his former teammate during battles more regularly than in peace and interchanged with Konoha’s spies, who couldn’t risk to contact the village directly (even so Jiraiya didn’t recognize a subtle change in Orochimaru’s behaviour, neither was he able to lead him away from the path he had already taken; but that’s another story to tell). It had been this way until the dimly burning fires of provocation, skirmish and sabotage inflamed into the burning hell, swallowing all the elemental countries with ravenous hunger. Sen was called back. Like a knight on Sarutobi’s chess table, she moved on command wherever she was needed.

It was a disgusting war, even more than the last – too many _shinobi_ had died in the last, too many children now had to make up for the losses. The villages lowered the age for academy graduation and Sen remembered Orochimaru’s words. _At least I would narcotize them._

Children had become a resource. Serve your home country and give a child to the village.

Disgusting.

In every single moment he wasn’t outside the village to fight and sabotage the enemy, he was in his labs – the officials and the ones, she didn’t know about. She didn’t know exactly, what he was doing – examining the cells of Senju Hashirama couldn’t be _that_ engaging for him alone – and Sen didn’t push him. If it would’ve been anything she should’ve known, he would’ve told her. Until this very moment, it was the best for the two of them, not to know. Should the whole shit be heading south, Sen would be able to wash her hands off responsibility.

But somehow, Orochimaru managed to still train his Genin-team, which Sarutobi had forced on him.

“Sen-san! Look, look, look!”

Anko bit both her thumbs with so much enthusiasm that Sen saw the blood splashing, before her fingers flew through the signs and she smashed her small hands to the ground. In a _poof_ and a small cloud appeared a snake, thrice as long as little-Anko, upper and lower body in the grass, while Anko hold the middle with both her hands above her head, grinning proudly.

“My! So, your _sensei_ gave you the opportunity to sign the snake-contract.” Sen gazed at Orochimaru, who stood a few steps aside, arms crossed in front of his chest, watching Anko with a small smile and eying the snake warily, which turned her head to look up at its young summoner not amused.

“Anko-chan. Be a dear and dismiss your summon and go back to training, would you? Practice the hand signs I’ve shown you before.”

“Hai, Orochimaru-sensei!“

Anko did as her told and ran back on the training ground. It was a lovely day, totally uncaring about bloodshed and dying children, and Cora was shouting up in the trees, declaring its supremacy over the training ground. Sen watched him while he held his glance at his students, long silky hair flooding his shoulders, a bit too tense, slender fingers enclosed around his arms, a bit too firm, his posture straight and tired.

“I guess spies don’t get to be on leave from the front?”

“Smart as ever, my friend.”

“Then, why are you back here?” He took his eye from Anko and looked at her, and Sen saw the exhaustion in his eyes.

“Reporting. Accepting new orders. Making sure that you’re still alive.” He smiled gently, hardly perceptible. “And to give you this.” She reached under the sleeve of her jacket, took hold of something and pulled it off the fabric in Orochimaru’s field of view. He blinked curiously at the folded file she passed him over. He took it, unfolded it and viewed the buckled photograph, then observed the documentation. A sly smile played around the corners of his mouth.

“You did meet him?”

“He had been my contact in Iwagakure. I had been given the photograph to recognize my ally. I remembered the name when I read it.”

“How is he doing?”

“You were right. He has become a talented _shinobi._ ”

“But?” He eyed her across the file he detached his gaze of.

“There’s no ‘but’.”

“I can hear it in your voice, Sen.”

She shrugged, smiled unmasked, caught. “The spy-job isn’t doing him any good. It might destroy him.”

“Why so?”

“He’s too young.”

“You were very young as well when you’ve been recruited.”

She snorted. “I wasn’t _that_ young. He’s too kind. He’s an extraordinary medic-nin, he would do marvellously in a hospital or in a sickbay, because he endures pressure and stress even at his young age. Still, his kind heart will kill him, if he doesn’t kill it first. That’s the job.”

He observed her and Sen wasn’t able to tell, what he thought about her words. Carefully, he folded the delicate document and handed it back to her to tuck it under the sleeve of her uniform again. “What do you want me to do?”

“He was recruited by _ne_ and you are in _ne._ You could procure his transfer.”

His countenance was unreadable for her. He was hiding it and it annoyed her. There had never been the necessity to hide anything from each other – that was the reason why they clung to each other. “I can’t.”

“Oh, and why?”

“He was recruited _exactly_ for this position.”

“So what? It was you who noticed his medical talents, no one knows better than you how these are wasted, especially since Tsunade is gone – ”

“Sen, _I can’t_. I’m not in the position to make such decisions.”

“You’re one of the legendary Sannin. Don’t tell me there’s anything you can’t do.”

He glared at her, furious, anger flaring in his eyes as she remembered him one time too often of the past, but, oh this little beast, that was her intention all along, wasn’t it? “I’m in Research & Science. Not in Intelligence.”

“And Danzo eats out of the palm of your hand.”, she hissed, a sound not unlike like his voice, impregnated with hardly suppressed rage. “What has become of protecting talented children, Orochimaru?”

She saw the tension in his jawbone, the slight trembling in his arms and assumed his hands clenched forcibly, hidden in his pockets; and there was a fleeting glance in Anko’s direction, who practiced her movements just about out of earshot. Sen didn’t hide her smile, triumphantly. So he still cared.

Sen wanted to push furthermore, she wanted to state out how he had been taken in by the boy, but every further word died on her tongue in the moment they both sensed the new chakra approaching them.

She watched him walking across the training ground like it belonged all to him. Eyed the new bandages, not for the first time musing, what he was hiding beneath, because he didn’t move like an injured man, despite of the crutch supporting him.

“Katsura-san. How pleasant.”

“Shimura-san.”

He turned the gaze of his single eye at her friend. “Orochimaru. May we have a word?”

He nodded, turning his attention to his student. “Anko-chan! I’m leaving. Are you able to find the way by your own or do you need Sen-san to walk you home?”

Sen froze by the implicit threat. She felt already utterly helpless with a child in one and the same room, what should she do if she had to past time with a little hurricane like Anko during _a whole walk?_ To her relief, Anko felt mugged by her sensei’s doubts in her capabilities. Orochimaru nodded thoughtfully by her decision and turned to leave the ground on Danzo’s side. He raised his hand and Sen nodded in return, remaining on the field, responding Danzo’s calm and polite nod with not much more than her gaze. With almost silently flutter, Cora alighted on the training ground-fence in close vicinity to Sen.

The crow cocked its head, gazing at the leaving men. “I don’t understand.”

“Hm?” She still watched the back of them, especially Danzo’s. “What don’t you understand?”

“You have so much information, enough to bring the rooster to fall. Why don’t you use it?” The crow seemed twitchy when it jumped on the fence, looking curiously at Sen and fluttered eventually on her shoulder, squeezing its claws in the fabric of her jacket, picking tenderly at her hair and cheek, unnerved by Sen’s lack of attention. She tickled her fingertips lethargically through the crow’s feathers.

“It’s not the time, Cora.”

“Why not, why not?”

“Because he would know who’s working against him. He could engulf me with him in the abyss. No, Cora, it has to be in a moment he’s already standing with his back to the wall. He mustn’t have the opportunity to strike back on me – or Orochimaru.”

The crow looked in her inattentive face, marvelled. “Krah, you’re so intelligent, Sen-sama!”

She smiled. “That’s the reason, why I’m the master and you’re the summon, sweetie.”

 

* * *

 

Sen was the most desirable woman he ever knew. Her erotism was subtle, just a breeze of heavy summer air. A glimpse in her deep eyes of what to gain if it would be possible to seduce her. But never had he seen Sen seduced. It was _her_ tempting game. He wouldn’t very likely find himself again caught in her net. It was once, and even she was one of the very few women with the ability to thrill him, she was even more done with men as he was with women. He couldn’t blame her. Maybe it was just the worry to destroy something between them, this unwavering trust, but more likely he didn’t attract her enough.

Once he got the opportunity to study her game, during a mission. Sarutobi-sensei had been glad to give his star _-kunoichi-_ spy – he was certain he would exhibit her like she was _his_ creation if her profession didn’t bring the necessity with it, to keep her involvements hidden – to his beloved former students, then the Sannin requested her in particular, as she was the only spy every three of them knew and trusted. He could hardly remember this guy, some higher military, but he could clearly see her before his inner eyes. Her knee, almost accidentally, between his, her eyes fixed on him in a glaze, the idiot took it for devotion, but Orochimaru had already known her too well at this point. There was only contempt in her eyes, sheer disgust, the certainty to look in her prey’s eyes. She had taken the hand of the military officer and guided him with her away. Needless to say he hadn’t seen the next day’s light.

The comparison he got every time when chance brought it about his teammates and him ending up in the same bar, where Sen took care of her next conquest. He would warn Jiraiya to stop staring, and Tsunade would say that the idiot could merely learn something from that. He would watch her, too, leaning close to the woman her interest was caught by, her arm gently around her shoulders, purring endearment in her ear, while her slender fingers stroked her neck tenderly, just with her fingertips, until the woman – _kunoichi_ or civilian wasn’t a matter for Sen – would finally take Sen’s hand and guided her with her away, Sen following, smirking in a thrill of anticipation.

Orochimaru didn’t love her – and to be honest, he didn’t know if either of them was any longer capable of love; too many things seen, too many things done, too often danced on the edge of bestiality and, now and then, crossing the thin grey line of humanity – and she didn’t love him. She was a friend, rather a _sister,_ she was family in some way. He didn’t deny the weightiness of friendship, not at this point in his life. There are those friends who come along with certain decisions, mostly not made by oneself, like teammates and colleagues, and his team had been some kind of family as well. And then there are friends you make by your own decisions. Circumstances of life bring with them to meet people, but the choice to see them again is more serious than the commitment of getting along with those you have to for higher reasons – like teammates. Sen was his decision. Tsunade had forced her on him, but he had decided to give it a chance as Sen had done as well. They were both _shinobi_ with their own fears and traumas, hopes and dreams far away from the anticipation others had on them, and too far away even from the mindset of their surrounding world.

It had seemed to be natural that they both did get along. But in fact, it was their decision. And they both cherished the idea of it.

If someone had ever asked Sen, why she was spending her time with the cold and dismissive snake summoner instead of the more handsome Jiraiya, who seemed to have a crush on her – as he had on every pretty woman –, she would’ve said that they did complement each other. Orochimaru was like the winter. Cold, icy, harsh, and quiet, too. There was no warmth to expect, everything hidden beneath the cover of immaculate snow, serene, deadly, but tempting in its beauty. Incalculable in its stormy nature, the chilly, grey sky possibly metamorphosing in harsh snowstorms. And so, Sen was summer. Hot-blooded, fiery, sometimes hazy, sometimes dizzy and lethargic, but always clear to words, clear as the summer sky, only darkened by heavy summer storms, clearing her from her furious wrath trapped inside her. Together, they could be the best of them: Mellow autumn days, rustling leaves, in red and gold burning trees, the air clear, fresh, the daylight a golden, honey shade, unique for the whole year, the last kiss of summer warmth, already in anticipation for the longer nights: remembering the best what lays behind, preparing for the worst to come, carrying the strength of yesteryears, without fear for the dark and cold before them.

No one would understand them like they understood each other. Because of that Sen was here on that very day.

No one answered the door when she knocked and she couldn’t hear steps. She walked around the porch to the backyard door and looked through the window. Even there was no one in sight, but she didn’t surrender, yet. She had a feeling. “Orochimaru?” She knocked on the porch door, continued knocking, unconcerned, in a gentle but steady rhythm, until he finally approached the living room from his study. He gave her a long and unenthused gaze, waiting for a moment in front of the door, long enough for her to assume that he would simply turn around and walk away. “Open. Or I’ll have to break something.”

She could see him rolling his eyes, before he finally opened the door for her.

“Katsura. No need for threats.” She walked in, he closed the door behind her, looking down on her with a heavy sigh. “Why are you here?”

“I heard about it.”

“Heard about it?” He raised a brow. “You know, I’ve missed you during the announcement yesterday.”

Sen looked at him irritated, nearly shocked. “You’d been there. Please, don’t tell me, you didn’t know.”

He stopped her with a raised hand, shooed her with his other to the sitting area. “Of course, I knew. We both talked about my misgivings a few weeks ago, and I’d been informed before.”

Sen took her seat on the couch, looking staggered at Orochimaru as he set down in his preferred chair. Of course, he was right. He had not just only mentioned it, they had talked about the issue, about Sarutobi’s concerns relating to Orochimaru’s work for ANBU-ne. His “worrying change”, his “lack of concern for the village”. Said about a man who had fought for this village since he could hold a kunai. His first assassination too soon, parents lost during the first war, fought as young man during the second, nearly seven years without peace, became one of the legendary Sannin, only four years of peace, working every minute in the village’s labs for the goddamned village’s sake, fighting and observing for ANBU, and then again drew his sword in the third war, than Tsunade left, broken, no longer able to bear it, while Jiraiya was straying through the woods to train a couple of lost children. He was left behind, the last of the Sannin, in order to serve his damned village. Sen felt hot, burning, freezing wrath inside of her. Had felt it as they first spoke about Sarutobi’s  w o r r i e s  and she felt it now. Of course, they both didn’t feel any love for this place. Konohagakure, like any other village, stood for everything what went wrong in this world. Distrust, betrayal, lies. Distorted morality, driving a bloody hero into suicide, because he rescued his teammates, clutched at the idea that ties had to be stronger than abysses. But in spite of that all, they both were still here. Served and did what had to be done. And as they didn’t mind soiling their hands with these things which had to be done, they fell from grace. Unlike Orochimaru she couldn’t have cared less. She had been alone her entire life. She never looked for acknowledgement, she was born to live in the shadows of other’s names, hiding behind her innumerable masks. Orochimaru reached for power, for acknowledgement, for wisdom. Yet the villages would rather prefer they would walk silently off the stage like Hatake Sakumo did. So it would be so much easier for them to forget, that they created creatures like them and that they  n e e d e d  them.

“So. Why. Why were you there yesterday?”

“Because”, he said slowly. “I wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction hiding from disgrace as some humiliated dog. I grinned and bore it. The best thing I could do was paying my respect to the new appointed _yondaime._ ” Sen didn’t say a word, and he didn’t meet her gaze, looking down on his hands, stroking absentminded over his knees, lying on top of each other. “Why weren’t you there, yesterday?”

“I had no wish to see this boy wearing the Hokage’s hat. And I didn’t think you would be there – but I should’ve known better.” _To support you._ She didn’t say it. Things didn’t come so clear to word between them; it wasn’t necessary.

“Do you really have so little interest in the leading position of the village?”

“For me, it makes no difference if it is Sarutobi Hiruzen or Namikaze Minato. It won’t change anything. He’s too young, too unexperienced to prevail against the council of elders. And he doesn’t have the will to change things. _You_ would’ve changed things. _You_ would’ve made the difference.”

They looked at each other. She was a little astonished about his calmness. But perhaps, he had already decomposed his study or any other room she wasn’t aware of, had already calmed from his rage. Sometimes even she couldn’t tell.

“Well. ‘Don’t cry over spilt milk’, they say. Maybe, as you’re here now… may you accompany me for a walk?”

“Of course, I may.” She rose from her seat, waited for him to go along with her, as she slipped through the veranda door. They both headed to the forest, walked through the garden and climbed over the fence, to walk at the old wood’s borders. Autumn had already fallen. She could see it in the colours of the light, this particular shade in the atmosphere, a spark of cosmic gold. The trees started to change their garbs, mellow spots of gold and honey brown staining the leaves’ edges, in air the first sweet hunch of decay and evanescence, but the sun was warm yet and inviting.

The two of them walked in silence. Their paces weighed down the grass under their feet, first fallen leaves rustling beneath. His hands were in the pockets of his yukata, his eyes directed at the path they were walking. Sen knew this expression on his face too well. The thoughtfulness in his serpent-eyes, his pale lips closed firmly, the tension at his jaw muscles, spreading down in his shoulders, disfeaturing the usually graceful and smooth movements of his body. There wasn’t need for words. Nothing they could’ve said would’ve made any difference. And other than he, Sen wasn’t good at words.

Sen looked up in the sky, in the clear, endless blue and wished they could just keep walking, on and on, across the borders of the village, the lines of civilization, behind the limits of the known. Beneath the skin of humanity. There men and animals were the same, hand touching claw; naked skin and fur, feathers and scales.

Sometimes she didn’t understand why she had to retain human behaviour. Why it was so important to dress herself. To rise in the morning and sleep in the night. To eat cooked meals, prepared in a special way. One part of her mind told her it was because humans didn’t kill to stop hunger or protect themselves, but to satisfy feelings and desires, so they did have to go along with ridiculous rules, because they were a ridiculous species. The other part of her mind told her: don’t think. Just do it.

“Sometimes”, his voice tore the silence and her thoughts, brought her back from the borders of discomfort, “I think this place is already too rotten to its roots. Maybe, it’s not possible to change anything, even for me.”

She took the thought into her, needed a moment of thinking. “What would that mean for us?” His eyes met hers, questioning. “Not for them. But us.”

He smirked at these words, leading his gaze back to the path in front of them. “Well. I guess, some day there will have to be made a decision.”

“What kind of decision?”

“Sometimes, I play with the idea to form a village of my own.”

He didn’t continue, let the words trail off. She was curious now, but she didn’t want to urge him. As they continued their walk and he didn’t spoke again, she finally asked: “What would be different to any other village?”

He huffed, uttered a deep sigh. “As Dan died – and Tsunade was in this awful state, so broken, _destroyed_ even – I broke in the Hokage’s library.”

She smiled. “You never mentioned that.”

“That’s not the point. The thing is: I searched it, and the _jutsus_ I found are remarkable. So powerful, you can’t imagine the possibilities. The power to help Tsunade, to properly stop this war laid before me, but these _jutsus_ are called _forbidden,_ based on the opinions of a few unwilling to share or too afraid of this power.” He took a deep breath, his gaze fading away in the far. She smiled slightly. There it was again. The subject on objectivity. “But even if I were allowed to study them, they are far too much for one single lifetime. They are wasted, locked away to rot in these shelves, never used by anyone, an anthology of dead knowledge.”

“So”, she finally said, as Orochimaru fell in silence again. “What would it be like? The village.”

“A place without boundaries. A place to allow subjectivity. _Personality._ ”

She thought about it. “To study whatever anyone desires to know.”

“Without damnation for the thirst for knowledge.”

“A place without social restraints or prejudices.”

“To gather knowledge and improve without distraction from the villages’ politics and ambitions. I see, you got the idea.”

“They wouldn’t allow such a place to exist.”

“Therefore, it would must be hidden more meticulous than every other village; or the big villages would have to be destroyed to guarantee its safety.”

Sen hummed thoughtfully. “That’s a high price to pay.”

“Peace _always_ demands a high price.”

She looked up to him, tilted her head slightly. “Peace?”

“I want to extinguish the reasons for war. To extinguish the cycle of life and death, this whole lunacy determining our lives. We live to kill and die. That can’t be it, can it? It _mustn’t_ be it.”

“And you believe, breaking the cycle for you would end this what you call lunacy?”

“Not for everyone”, he admitted. “but for myself. And for those I care for. What would you call it all if not lunacy?” He looked down at her, his hands still in his pockets, tension in his shoulders; he seemed so exhausted, Sen thought. And then so driven by something, and it wasn’t the rejection by his _sensei_ and the village alone. Orochimaru needed determination, a bloody _purpose_. The be a soldier in a village’s service whose residents feared him and judged him for the things he did in order to defeat the village’s enemies – well, Sen might possibly not have been the best moral compass around, but at least she had some sense for loyalty – indeed couldn’t be the life purpose for a man like him.

“Life, I’d call it.”

He grimaced, huffed dismissive. “That’s not life, Sen-chan. That’s a bloody fuss.”

She chuckled, closed her eyes and let her head drop slightly to avoid his gaze, because maybe he was right, though she couldn’t help herself but laugh about his indignation.

He watched her with narrowed eyes, till she ended her small outburst of amusement. “What do you think about it?”

Sen sighed. “You know me well enough to be aware of my quite different sight on life and death, Orochimaru.”

He smirked gently and reached out his hand to lay his fingers on her shoulder softly. “I know well. And that’s not what I meant. I want to know what a _kunoishi,_ who had survived the second and the third _shinobi_ war and always had to serve with her talents, which she hates and loathes, is thinking of the idea of a village, which doesn’t care about world politics – a place to be who you are.”

She stared in nothingness, allowing her feet to go on, his hand on her shoulder, guiding her gently. “Who am I?”

“Why not find it out together?” He released her and led his hand back on his side. “You never had the chance to experience who you are beside your purpose for the village. Imagine you would give yourself that purpose, my lovely dear.”

“I tried. After I awoke – ”

“That wasn’t a chance. You remembered, they gave you a nice certificate saying ‘ready for further missions’ and that’s it. They never wanted you to think about who you are – who you _could_ be!”

“When you ask me, to find the potential of my very self together – what exactly are you asking?”

“I’m asking, if one day I should come across the thought that it would be better to leave this place and found a village of my own, will you come with me?”

“I don’t know, I – ” She breathed in deeply, led her gaze back upon the sky. Twilight was setting in. The shadows became longer and the air a bit cooler. “You know, I’m a really bad schemer – ”

“That’s the lie of the year.”

“ – and feel always better with spontaneous decisions. So: Ask me again when it’s about happens.”

He smirked, knowing that was everything he would get from her – today. “Well, then. I’ll keep that in mind.”

He froze and stood still, Sen stopped automatically at his side, looking past the sparse trees they were walking in between to see Jiraiya. This encounter wasn’t intended. His face showed the same surprise as Orochimaru’s, though his countenance found a pleased expression more quickly as he lifted his hand to wave at them, especially at his former teammate.

Orochimaru sighed. “At last, this is the one humiliation, I _really_ wanted to avoid.”

“Should I stay?”

“No. I have to do this.” He gave her a last glance, before he continued walking, while Sen stayed between the trees, watching in silence, as the two men met each other.

She watched them from the distant and, heavens, sometimes she really wanted to punch this silly bright face, shouting at Jiraiya for all his blindness and egoism. While he didn’t return to the village in order to train a couple of kids right out in the sticks and Tsunade left –

– Sen wasn’t cold-hearted despite anything anyone’s saying,  b u t  there are limits, and mourning was a very comprehensible reaction to the loss of two beloved people,  e v e r y o n e  had lost at least one beloved person in these wars. Tsunade just had run away, leaving everything and everyone behind who actually could have needed her, didn’t care for anyone but herself. Tsunade had been Orochimaru’s teammate, his _friend_ , and she just left, against any commitment she had for her team and her village. That wasn’t the war goddess, Sen had seen in her; that was just recreancy –

 – run away from her pain and suffering, Orochimaru was left behind by the only people in his life who did make an influence on him, who were able to pull him in the right directions, while she herself could only stand beside and watch the house burning, because Sen, with all her faults and mistakes, wasn’t the person to set him aright – because she wouldn’t know where this right direction would be. She looked in the dark and didn’t see a way; and then she finally saw a trail, so unremarkable it would be, she would follow, just to avoid walking through the dark, not caring if it’s wrong or if it’s right. It wasn’t her right nor her ability to judge. Though Sen was cursed with eyes to see, and although she wasn’t able to see morality and had forced herself to forget about the concept of good and evil, just seeing grey and grey in shades of grey, until blindness would fall upon her, she saw that the way Orochimaru was taking would only lead into darkness, beyond any grey – maybe not in her sight of view, but for himself, for his soul.

Jiraiya didn’t see it – or he didn’t want to. Tsunade would’ve seen it – but she wasn’t here. Sarutobi was inclined to and _did_ see it – but instead of giving his student a hand and showing him the other trail, he refused to give him a torch. He had a new favourite, Jiraiya’s favourite, and so he only saw the darkness and what he had lost in his favourite student and not what he still could be able to safe.

At least, this was how Sen saw and thought about it. Maybe she was to blame as well. Because she didn’t intervene. Because she took herself even more apart from the village. But the true is, even if she had have the strength to make an effort for Orochimaru, she didn’t believe, that she – perhaps anyone – would have been able to change his path. And she had begun to set herself apart from the day on she was given this _hitae ate_ in her hands, obliterated her identity, to become a shadow, a phantom – for the sake of the village.


	8. Chapter 8

Orochimaru wasn’t home.

Sen narrowed in front of the kitchen window. There was no tea service on the counter. The sink was clean, nothing used. The crow spy knew him well. He would never leave his house for a while in a messy state. But there hadn’t been any mission declared for him, not even a secret one – things she probably shouldn’t know about, but nevertheless she did, because, hey, a spy was only as good as his knowledge, even if that means to spy on your employer, the Kage, your village or whomever – and she didn’t see him since…

Since when?

Sen didn’t have a bad feeling. That guy was beyond able to look after himself just fine, even if he had been caked in trouble. She was just curious. They didn’t talk about their missions or projects, but she was sure he would have mentioned it over a cup of tea or a game of _Go_ if he would leave for a while. So, where the hell was he? And why didn’t at least one of her crows catch him if he left the village?

She pondered if she should summon one of her winged spies to look after him. No. That would have been too much. At the end he would detect it and think she was worrying about him. Heaven forbid! No, she would go the old fashioned way of investigation.

Sen buried her hands in her coat, protecting herself from icy autumn winds blowing over frozen earth, forerunners of cold winter days and walked away from the old house, headed back to the village’s centre. Her _hitae ate_ was tied around her upper arm, giving her access to the more formal buildings of the village, as she walked past the Hokage’s administration office, in direction to the Institutes for Research & Science, next to _Konohagakure Jōhōbu_ , the ‘Konoha Intelligence Division’.

Sen wandered down the long, sterile corridors, smelling the scents of formaldehyde and chlorine, strolling to the office cabin at the entrance. She knocked gently with her knuckles against the glass to attract the laboratory assistant’s attention. She waited with a false smile on her lips while the young man pulled open the small glass window.

“I’m looking for Orochimaru. Is he here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, could you make yourself sure – _please?_ ”

He looked her over, annoyed, before he flipped open a folder and searched for the timetables. “We’ve got a few shinobi corpses three days ago. Orochimaru-san had been scheduled to conduct the autopsy.”

“Are these autopsies finished yet?”

He sighed, looked down on his schedules. If it weren’t for the glass wall, she would’ve gladly knocked his forehead against it. “No. Still running.”

“Ok. Where?”

“Pardon me?”

“Where’s the autopsy running?”

“B12, but – but you mustn’t – ”

Sen went down the corridor, passed through the door leading to the staircase, taking two steps at once and reached the first floor. She was lucky to blunder into another lab worker, borrowing his access card during the physical contact and hared further down the corridor. She moved the cart over the control panel in front of the lab doors and passed through, looking for and finally finding laboratory B12. Sen glanced through the small door window. Jackpot. That was so much easier than she had imagined.

Sen walked through the door, approaching Orochimaru, his back towards her, facing the autopsy table in front of him. He didn’t bother to take a look. He probably already had been able to sense her chakra signature as soon as she entered the building.

“What are _you_ doing here?” She didn’t bother to give an answer, instead walked through the lab, “Katsura, I’m working, so _leave_ , goddamn”, hands in her trousers, observing the room. The body on the table was opened, thorax spread, a seal on skin and on the table around the upper body preventing putrefaction; and not a trace of anyone else.

“Where are your deaners?”

Orochimaru scoffed, didn’t look up from his work, while he removed the heart with care. “Suki was removed for a mission, Misuke has her day off and Saito faded out. I don’t have need for someone who can’t see a couple of smashed lungs.”

“Day off? Serious?”

Orochimaru raised his eyes over the surgical mask, a gaze speaking his mind perfectly, and Sen couldn’t hide a wicked smile.

“I dare say, Misuke is going to have a tough time.”

“You can bet your life on it.” His eyes moved back to his hands, though not for long. He watched her sceptically, hands still on his instruments inside the body, as she walked over to the supplies and took a pair of gloves she stripped over her hands. “What are you doing, Sen?”

“What does it look like? I’m assisting.”

His eyes darkened. “No. You’re leaving.”

She approached the table from the other side, standing in front of him, examining him once more, this time more thoroughly to confirm to herself what she had already apprehended when she walked through the door. His shoulders were tense, his eyes tired and its glance dull, the slightest sign of tremor in his slender fingers.

“Orochimaru”, she said with determination, “you didn’t eat or sleep for almost three days – ”

“That’s – ”

“ – the truth, because this is one of a few corpses brought in here three days ago, and since then you hadn’t been at home. If you’re going to deny it, make sure you have a good story at hand, because _I_ did do my homework.”, that was a lie, just a bluff, but that he didn’t know that and, nonetheless, it was a good one.

“Obviously.” He narrowed his eyes upon her, trying to intimidate her with his serpentine gaze, which made his exhaustion in chakra, body and mind evident, because it didn’t work. Instead it intensified in her the urge to put him to bed.

“Is this the last one?”

“Yes”, he said, with a pressed sound.

“We’ll finish it and leave.”

“Sen.”, he spoke with exhaustion. “You don’t have the qualification for this.”

She braced her hands on her waist, lifting her eyebrows. “I’m a girl with a lot of talents.”, she reminded him. “Otherwise – if you’re trying to kick me out, I’ll destroy the corpse.”

He laughed, bitter, tired, still amused. “And how would you do that, my lovely dear?”

She grinned. “With a flock of crows, appearing out of thin air and very eager for a sumptuous meal.”

He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, tried to strengthen his composure. What did he do to deserve this? Orochimaru opened his eyes and Sen could see the purest killing intent. She smiled amiably.

“Hold the forceps”, she reached for it in his hands, took them just above his fingers, “look to it that you spread the thorax wide open”, and she gave the interiority a scrutinizing look.

“There isn’t much left in here.”

He huffed. “I’m doing this for quite a while by now.”

Sen wasn’t sure if her help really helped to make things going faster, though that hadn’t been the reason why she was here to annoy him. Orochimaru enjoyed his solitude and she usually appreciated that. But…

But things have changed. There have always been phases in which Orochimaru would lock himself up in his labs, completely taken by his experiments and researches, and there had always been Tsunade and Jiraiya to take him away from it. She remembered his complaining about their constant interruptions. Now no one was here to interrupt him, no one to drag him out, no one declaring “the guy has to go out and get some fresh air!”

Sen was an awful friend, because she forgot about that. She wasn’t here enough to accompany him, and even though so she wasn’t the right person to force him to interpersonal interactions, because she herself didn’t like them, favoured to be on her own. She wasn’t able to fill the gap Tsunade had left, couldn’t compensate for the fraud Orochimaru felt, when Jiraiya stayed back in Ame. She wasn’t what he needed, because they both were too similar. The two of them against the rest of the world. That’s no bloody good.

She wasn’t able to make up for his losses – the death of his parents he never got over with; the death of his students during the second war, especially Nawaki’s, Tsunade’s little brother; Jiraiya’s decision to stay in Ame and leave his team during wartime on their own; Tsunade’s leaving after Dan’s death; and the increasing mistrust of Sarutobi Hiruzen, his _sensei_ , who had become some kind of father substitute when Orochimaru still was a child. Now the affront to give preference to someone else for the position of the Yondaime Hokage, not even one of Sarutobi’s own students.

She couldn’t make up for his losses. Neither was she the friend Orochimaru needed. But Katsura Sen was all Orochimaru was going to get. It was more than nothing, after all. But maybe not enough.

It was dark outside when Sen and Orochimaru left the complex of buildings. Sen turned up the collar of her coat, feeling a little bit chilly, burring her hands in her pockets. She glanced over to him. “More work to do?”

He declined his head, narrowing his eyes, while walking along her side, not giving any attention to his surroundings, not even noticing – long since stopped – the glares, people avoiding their path. “Own projects.”

Sen knew this was all he had to say about. She sighed, turned away her look away from him and directed it up to the night sky. “I wonder if you’re pushing yourself too far.”

He huffed. “What else should I do?”

“Don’t know. Get some drinks with me?” She smiled at him provokingly, but he returned it only with a bitter, smug smirk.

“I’ll head home.”

“Orochimaru.”

He glanced back when Sen stopped walking, standing in the middle of the street, hands in her cloak, watching him thoroughly. He stood still and turned around to her, observing the look on her face. Was it concern? He frowned, didn’t say anything, but gave her his full attention – even when it was awkward, standing here in the middle of the street, watching passersby taking the time to move around them. He didn’t feel comfortable like this. He really wished she would make her point and keep moving at the same time.

Sen came up one step closer, looked up at him, didn’t let herself get unsure by his look, slowly growing irritated. “We are friends.”

He grimaced in irritation and confusion, shook his head while shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. “What is this about, Sen?”

She closed the gap between them, and before Orochimaru could avoid her, she reached out and he felt her arms around his shoulders, felt her embrace and the slight push against her body. He tensed, utterly taken by surprise, staring past her head and messy hair he felt gently touching against his neck and chin, as she held him near enough to speak in his ear directly: “I won’t leave.” Orochimaru tensed, even more, forcing back the reflex to free himself and push her away, to turn and leave, instantly, without looking back, stopping this ridiculous situation becoming more and more distressing and embarrassing, so that he didn’t even dare to focus his gaze on the faces around them to avoid the expression on people’s faces, they might evoke. Once more she said it, he heard her voice, gentle and calm, as her voice nearly always was, and why was he still standing here?

Something snapped. He couldn’t explain what it was, but all of a sudden, he didn’t care, all his concerns became indifferent, as he allowed himself to feel something like grief and sorrow, thankfulness and fear. He didn’t know why her words made him feel exactly this way, but he didn’t care any longer, and he lifted his arms to return her embrace, holding her tightly.

Eventually, she broke up the hug and smiled up at him, retreating one step and shoving her hands back into her coat. “I’ll go home, too, then. Please, let me hear from you in the next days, so I don’t have to search for you again.”

He watched her as she turned around, waving back over her shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.

 

* * *

 

“Careful.”

Rain was falling, outside, pouring itself against the cool glass, pounding on wood and stone.

“Here we are.”

Orochimaru moaned; he tried to release himself from her grip, while Sen tried to navigate him to his bedroom. The Most Holy Place, which she never saw before.

“Let me go.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I can walk on my own.”

“It didn’t look like you can.”

Sen fiddled around with the shoji-door to Orochimaru’s private rooms, while sustaining him and shoved the door open. She stumbled into the room and nearly fell over her own feet, causing a quiet, nasty laugh from Orochimaru, despite the fact that he would have fallen with her down.

“A little assistance would be nice!”

He snorted. “Why should I?”

“I brought you home.” She navigated through his study and of course didn’t suppress the urge to examine the room, the bookcases, the desk, everything neat and trim. The shoji to his adjoining bedroom stood open.

“I didn’t ask for that.”

She remembered him in the bar. The guy at his side, his hand on his leg, while Orochimaru sipped on his saké, didn’t bother to look at him nor did he stop his haptics. Her stomach still twitched at the thought. Just back in the bar, she just had been angry. “You weren’t really interested in this Hyuga, were you?” She lead him in the bedroom, heading for the bed.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Come on, you didn’t even know his name.”

He laughed, raspy and malicious. “You never cared for anyone you fucked with, but did I ever judge you?”

“Oh, that’s not fair!”

“It is not?” He allowed her to push him on the bed, he sat down, looking up at her from tired, glazed eyes, but he still was clear enough in his head. She hadn’t ever seen him drunk before. It startled her to see him in a condition, in which he let the control slip away from his hands. She saw him, that guy; and it had made her angry. “You never had a sane relationship to anyone, but you are upset if I don’t care about the person, with who I might share a night?”

His smile became venomous. Sen crossed her arms in front of her chest, smiling calmly and a little bit amused. “Sweetheart… It’s the first time, I realise, you’re being actually  n i c e  to me, when you’re sober.”

He chuckled, deep, smooth and rogue. “Maybe so far you never gave me a reason to be honest with you?”

“Hm, you might have a point there.” She reached for him and pushed her hand gently against his shoulder, persuading him to lay down back on his bed. “You might be right, that I don’t care as much as I probably should about other people, but I care for  y o u, and you deserve better than that greasy Hyuga.”

“And this is your decision to make?” He opened his already closed eyes and looked up at her, examining her face, her eyes.

His look aroused in her the want to apologise. But she killed it, wrestled it down the very moment it awoke in her. No. She didn’t do anything wrong. Of course, he would find someone else to share a night, but she wouldn’t watch him allowing someone else to take control of him. Not right under her nose.

They hadn’t been appointed to meet. She merely walked into the same bar tonight randomly and had seen him at the counter, him and the Hyuga, who had sat uncalled at his side, touching him, looking at him with a gaze she knew far too well from men like him. Orochimaru deserved better. Even if he didn’t think so, even if that was exactly what he wanted. Of course, he was right. It wasn’t her business. He never intruded himself into her affairs. No, it wasn’t her decision to make. Still, she wouldn’t allow it. She couldn’t bring herself to not care about it.

“Where do you have your painkillers?”

“Desk drawer.”

He let her drop the subject and didn’t push her further, as long as she wouldn’t bring it up again. Sen left the bedroom, opened his desk drawer to take the pills, fetched a glass of water and brought it back to the bedroom.

Sen left it on the side table and sat down on his bedside. She didn’t want to fight with him, she wanted to tell him, that he should sleep now, that she would leave to do the same. He didn’t let her. Orochimaru sat up and kissed her, capturing her lips and caressed them with passion, didn’t mind that she didn’t respond, didn’t move, let it happen as if she’d been numbed. She stared at him, as he released the kiss, grinning at her and stroking his finger gently down her lips to her chin, before he sank back on the sheets and closed his eyes.

She pulled the sheet up to his shoulders, observed him for a moment longer; he was already asleep, his breath light and unburdened. Sen stroke the strands of onyx black hair out of his face, before she stood up and left the room. 

 

* * *

 

He ran. He ran until the pain burned in his veins like battery acid and then he ran further. The roaring of his own heart occupying his hearing, throbbing in his throat and suffocating him, with every step raging pain breaking out from his side and filling his entire body, quivering from his toes to his scalp, beats of a bizarre rhythm forcing his blood to flood in its pattern; but still he ran.

He couldn’t think straight, his thoughts racing through his mind, not allowing him to realise what just happened, nothing but a simple thought: run.

finally, he stumbled, slowed down, gasping, grasping for hold and sustained himself against the next tree. Think. He had to think, to make a _plan!_

Orochimaru looked down on his side, on his hand still pressed against the wound, lifted it again, held it up against his gaze, as it could become reality if he just looked at it, over and over again. Still, he wasn’t able to cope with it. It was unreal, even the pain. He knew the day would come, when _sensei_ would find the labs and catch him off guard. A part of him had always known, had been prepared. _Birds of prey eat snakes._ He had known, that Danzo would let him fall. It wasn’t such a surprise when Hiruzen stepped into his lab. But Orochimaru didn’t kill one single ANBU with his _jutsu._ He dared to look back and he saw, that _sensei_ didn’t have the intent to kill him, too. That the old man wasn’t able to bring himself to murder his student. He thought, they would have an agreement. And he didn’t have the intention to harm Sakumo’s boy, not really.

He had been so wrong. What he saw in Hiruzen’s eyes wasn’t the missing coldheartedness to kill him; he just didn’t have the heart to look him in the eyes to see him die.

It had been absolute luck. The trap should have killed him. _Sensei_ knew, he couldn’t ever hurt a snake, even as he realised it wasn’t one of his summons, and he never – _never!_ – dared to believe, that Sarutobi Hiruzen, the man who had been there for him, when his parents died, the man who cared for him, when he still was a child, despite their differences and the fact that they drifted apart over the years – in which reality had he been able to let arise the thought, that he would be able – would   _d a r e_ – to murder him from behind?

Whatever this had done to him, whatever was brought to light in his eyes – it had been enough to freeze the young Hatake in his intentions.

He breathed heavily and bit back a groan. He forced himself to think. He had to get medical help, soon. His house would be already under strict watch. How many ANBU would Hiruzen send to hunt him down? He had to go for one of his bases outside Konohagakure, one even Danzo didn’t know about, but he had to hurry.

Orochimaru pushed himself off the tree, started to run and stopped again. They expected him to escape through the woods, didn’t they?

He turned around and ran in the other direction, possibly not a wise decision, but they wouldn’t expect him to sneak away right in front of them. They searched him in the woods, so they would possibly be fewer guards in the village than outside.

His heart pounded in his ears, breathtaking. He slipped through the walls in the middle of the night, had been long enough in ANBU-ne to know every weakness in Konoha’s ward. He didn’t get near his own house, he avoided the laboratories and every place, he had frequently been to, sliding through the shadows in order to transit the village and escape through the west-side of Konoha, while they combed through the forest on the east.

Orochimaru stopped in his trail. He looked up at the house front, he was standing at, at the window in the second floor. There was light.

A wild grin spred across his face. Was it utterly by chance or fate? He would know very soon.

Orochimaru leaped up and climbed at the windowsill, crouching down and knocking his knuckles against the window. He watched her through the glass. She wore her uniform, packed her supply bag, obviously preparing for a mission. She looked up from her doing, across the room, met his eyes, confused but reacted fast, went through the room and opened the window.

She examined him, bewildered and alarmed, questions flooding through her glance, meeting his wide smile, the venomous glint in his eyes. He could read the question from her eyes, _what happened?,_ but he pre-empted her. He had waited for an answer long enough. He had to know. Now.

“Now would be a good time to make a decision, Sen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s done, my dears.  
> I thank you all for reading, subscribing, bookmarking and leaving kudos. Special thanks go out to Whitesnak3 for the comments. It’s so nice to have a ‘face’ behind the numbers of readers – thank you! And, of course, my ‘assistant’, who revised my not quite perfect English – thank you, darling ^^
> 
> Let me know, if some of you would be interested in a continuation of the story.
> 
> Merry Christmas.


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